


Nyctophilia

by ZielonookiKsiezniczka



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Basically a fucked up situtation, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Force Choking (Star Wars), Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Mind the Tags, Oral Sex, Physical Abuse, Power Imbalance, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Smut, Things will get a little better as the story continues, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZielonookiKsiezniczka/pseuds/ZielonookiKsiezniczka
Summary: Nyctophilia - preference for the darkness or night; feeling of belonging in the dark.MIND THE TAGS! Inspired by some absolutely fantastic fan art of Sith!Obi-Wan that I've had the pleasure to come across, this is a sexually explicit AU fic where events of TPM played out a little differently and everyone's (read: mine) favorite good guy Jedi has gone to the dark side. In other words, he is not a nice man in this fic.This is fiction, I do not personally condone the actions which I included in this work. All characters are over 18. Again, please mind the tags. There are several instances of rape/non-consensual sex throughout this work.Resources for (US) victims of sexual assault and/or human trafficking:National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 800.656.HOPE(4673)National Human Trafficking Resource Center: 888.373.7888
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Original Female Character(s), Sith Obi-Wan/Original Female Character
Comments: 17
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Grey-green eyes flutter open in a darkened room. The ache in her muscles keeps her from jolting up from the soft surface she's currently laying on. _In_ , she thinks, _would be a more appropriate description_ , recognizing that she's covered with a warm blanket laid over a silky sheet. She now recognizes the feeling of a pillow beneath her head and she surmises that she is in a bed. Where the bed is located, however, she cannot even begin to guess as it's pitch black and her eyes have not yet adjusted.

She tries reaching out. Nothing. A sense of panic beginning to creep in, her breathing speeds up, becoming erratic. Telling herself that it could be a trick of the room, she attempts to regain some semblance of calm. It eludes her.

A door swings open to her left, spilling a soft, warm light into the darkness. She squints regardless at the sudden influx and pushes herself to sitting. The scent of fresh flowers and mulled spices drift in with the light from whatever sits outside this room.

"Ah, good. You're awake." The woman's voice is friendly as she taps a console on the wall and an orange glow emanates from a lamp on a table in one corner of the room.

"Wh...where...where am I," she asks, voice crackling and hoarse from disuse.

The woman steps fully into the small room and begins to flit around, pulling back the blankets covering her, setting out a pair of slippers, rearranging objects on the table, laying wispy garments across the end of her bed.

"We were wondering how long it would take you to wake up," the woman says, ignoring her question.

She tries to recall what happened. There were explosions. The ship rocked. Not once, but several times. Flashes of light and heat. They'd been boarded. But not before she'd watched out the forward viewport as the lead ships were destroyed. Not before she'd felt the loss of life surrounding her. It was a fight she knew they couldn't win. Their attackers, whoever they were, had them severely outgunned. _How had I not sensed this_ , she'd chastised herself silently. She'd agreed to surrender their cargo and their lives. When the pirates had come aboard, her lightsaber had still hung on her belt.

She looks around the room for her belongings. She can't feel the call of her crystal and panic sets in once more. Her Master was going to be upset that she'd lost her lightsaber.

"How did I…," she begins, taking the offered arm of the woman as she stands slowly.

"Now, now, child. Take it slow," the woman answers, reaching for the garments she'd placed on the bed. "Let's get you changed and I'll escort you to the Head Sister."

The woman hands her the garments and stands back as she dresses in what turns out to be flowing, wide-legged pants and a robe that comes down to her mid-thigh made of the lightest, silkiest fabric she's ever felt. She absently rubs the hem of the robe between her fingertips. The woman sits her down in the chair in front of the table with the lamp and begins to braid her hair. Her right hand moves to pull the lock of hair that is her Padawan braid out of her gathered hair only to discover it is no longer there. She gasps, frantically searching with her fingers for the feel of the thin braid and ties, then for a short tuft in case it had been cut. But no, it had simply been undone. She feels a tear trace down her left cheek, realizing for the first time that she may very well be lost.

Music comes from somewhere distant as she follows the woman out of the room. The hallway is decadent but clean, deep reds and purples and gold twist and play in the carpet beneath her slippered feet and carry over to the wall coverings. She hears the faint sounds of other voices, all feminine, as she takes in as much as she can of her surroundings. She's led to a room - an office - with a desk carved from a dark wood standing near a frosted window, warm light filtering softly through in a way that tells her it's artificial. The window does not look out onto anything.

Behind the desk, an elegant woman looks up. She's older than the woman who escorted her to the office, though her dark hair, pulled tightly into a braided bun at the nape of her neck, shows only a streak of grey at one temple. The skin on her face is smooth except for the shallow lines at the outer corners of her violet eyes.

Her escort bows to the older woman and exits, leaving her alone with who she assumes is the "head sister" the escort mentioned. Long, red lacquered fingernails tap thoughtfully on the datapad the woman had set aside upon their entrance. "I believe some of the girls had a pool going on how long it would take you to wake up," she begins bluntly, a hint of a smile curving the corners of her crimson lips. Her voice is low and warm, sensuous, with an accent she can't quite place.

The woman behind the desk stands, smoothing the front of her tightly-fitted, lavender-hued tunic. "I am Head Sister Liessha. Welcome to the Temple of Raat-hi."

She's not sure what to say in response. She's never heard of this Temple before, nor even a planet or a system with that name. "Thank you," she finally forces out quietly if only to be polite.

The woman, Liessha, asks her name and she gives it before asking timidly where she is, exactly, and how she ended up here.

"Come," Leissha says, stepping out from behind her desk. "We'll talk of your situation and my expectations as I show you around the Temple."

They walk slowly, Leissha giving her the opportunity to take in the artworks and fountains and other decorations as they pass through various rooms on the tour. Leissha hadn't said much and they'd avoided a route that would have put them in direct contact with the owners of the voices she could hear around corners and behind closed doors. Several rooms back, however, she'd begun to notice the underlying theme of the decor.

Leissha paused at the entrance to a large indoor garden, the centerpiece of which was a stonework fountain featuring sculptures of females of varying species engaging in what could modestly be described as sensual acts, either with a male counterpart or, occasionally, one another.

"This is a brothel, then," she asks, surprised at the steadfastness of her own voice despite the implications of what it means for her.

"Not exactly, my dear," the Head Sister answers.

"Part of the slave trade? Specializing in…," she searches for a softer term for what she considers deplorable. "Pleasure slaves?"

"I was told you might prove a shrewd observer."

"Told by whom," she asks, keeping her eyes forward, her chin held high.

"The ones who arranged to have you brought to us. I don't know their names, only that they assured me you'd fetch a fine price if you could be properly trained."

She fights to keep her breath from shuddering as she holds back the tears and the anger at the situation she finds herself in. "Do you know what I am? What I _was,_ I suppose?"

The Head Sister doesn't look at her as she replies matter-of-factly, "What you were before no longer matters. You are _here_ now. I paid those who brought you to me just as the one who will eventually purchase you will pay me. Our clientele is much more prestigious, more selective, than you'd find other places. My sisters train young women, and some men, to be the best. You should be thankful you were brought to me. There are far worse places you could have ended up, child."

Zygerria or Hutt space are two that come immediately to her mind. She turns to find the Head Sister has continued walking. She does not hurry to catch up. Ahead of her, Leissha stops at the entrance to what appears to be a small dormitory. There are eight neatly made beds in two rows with a door to a large, shared washroom at the end. One bed has a small stack of folded laundry on the top.

"This is where you'll be sleeping while we see to your education. There are two others assigned to this room as well but they are attending lessons this time of day."

A nod is all the acknowledgement she can muster.

The Head Sister places a palm on her lower back and guides her into the room. "You have some time before the evening meal if you wish to wash. You are expected to wear the clothing provided," she adds, gesturing to the neatly folded stack on the bed. "Someone will fetch you for mealtime." With that, Leissha walks away, leaving her standing just inside the door to her new room.

She leans back against the door, releasing a sigh that could easily have become a sob if she hadn't spent the last several minutes repeatedly telling herself not to cry. She would find a way out of this eventually, no matter how long it took. _Though it would be much easier if I could connect to the Force,_ she thinks. 

Another young woman, a Rodian, comes in to find her sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed. She'd showered and dressed in the soft, white undergarments and robe provided and had decided to try meditating until the evening meal. It hadn't been a particularly successful endeavor. The Rodian, also dressed in a white robe, introduces herself. She frowns as she realizes the fit of her own robe - enough fabric to meet in the middle just above her navel, splitting apart again just below the apex of her thighs - was apparently not a mistake. At least they'd given her undergarments. Unused to having so much skin exposed as part of an everyday outfit, she tugs at the inner edges of the robe as she stands, trying to cover more of her torso.

"You get used to it," the Rodian girl, who introduces herself as Ina, says. "Come on, I'm here to take you to the dining hall."

She'd thought her _instruction_ would begin the next day, but after the meal, she's whisked away to an evening discussion on servitude. By the time she's led back to her dormitory, she's overcome with numbness. With hopelessness. Sex had always been something she’d sought out for fun, whether it was a one night romp with someone she met at a cantina on Coruscant or those times she and a fellow Padawan had decided to take their flirtatious behavior to the next level for a bit before moving on. Those were all partners she had _chosen_. It had been her choice to go home with this or that young man, to sneak off to a secluded room in the Temple or to a rooftop garden high in the planet-city skyline. That ability to choose no longer belonged to her. Like all her other abilities, it was gone.

Days pass and she gets to know some of the other "students," many of whom are human, though there are Twi'leks, Togruta, and at least one other Rodian besides Ina, in addition to other species. She finds it notable that they are _all_ humanoid. She attends her lessons, eats her meals, and listens as the other girls talk about the type of _Master_ they hope they'll end up with. The thoughts of what will happen to them when they grow old and their masters no longer find them beautiful or useful, she keeps to herself.

The lessons themselves are quite a bit more varied than she'd expected. Etiquette and technique, of course, comprise a good portion of her day, but the Head Sister insists each student knows how to dance, how to visually stimulate her or his Master by providing pleasure to another slave while the Master looks on, how to brew tea or caf, how to properly mix alcohols, and so on. They are also given lessons on various cultures, so as to avoid accidentally offending their Masters or their Master's associates.

The Head Sister had ensured _her_ training was a little more intense than that of the girls she shared a dormitory with. She often returns to her bed late at night, exhausted and aroused from the ever-present sensuality of both her surroundings and her lessons. She wishes that wasn't the case. She wishes she could shut off her libido, even for just one night. The Head Sister must know she touches herself as she lays in her bed at night, after the other two young women have gone to sleep.

It turns out Leissha, the Head Sister, _does_ know. A few weeks into her time at the temple, the sisters have her outfitted with a contraption that covers her sex. It's designed in such a way that it will still allow her to eliminate and to clean herself with a light stream of water, but it blocks her roaming fingers. Black leather straps lock into place around her thighs to hold it in place - restricting her usual gait, causing her to take on a more subservient shuffle - and the rigid metal portion covering her sex can only be moved aside with proper authorization. She wonders sulkily if one of the other students has experience as a slicer and can program it to read her fingerprints.

Practical lessons on technique have become the bane of her existence. A dull ache settles in her nether regions as she practices fellatio on the human male tutor. The first several days of these lessons, he'd worked with her, talked her through it, given her pointers, improved her technique. Now, as the Head Sister watches, evaluating, he does nothing more than gasp and moan in pleasure as she runs her tongue and her lips along the length of his cock. With his fingers tangled in her hair, he pulls her off of him, takes his length in his own hand, and angles himself to come on her bare chest. She longs to reach her hand between her legs but instead just shifts uncomfortably on her knees in front of the tutor.

Three days later, she is given free time to go to her dormitory and rest. There are only two comfortable positions in which to sleep with what she refers to as “the torture device” stuck between her legs - on her back or on her stomach. She's chosen her stomach for this nap and falls asleep quickly. The door to her dormitory opens and she stirs slightly but does not fully wake, assuming it's one of her roommates. It isn't until she feels her mattress move under the weight of another that her eyes pop open. Her head lifts from the bed in time for someone to cover her mouth with a cloth.

She tries to fight back, but the man holding her down is strong. He shifts his weight on her as he pulls at her robe and her undergarments, exposing her backside. For a moment she's grateful for the contraption the Head Sister had fitted her with. This man is going to be sorely disappointed. A new panic washes through her though as she feels him shift his weight again to undo the fastenings of his pants. As she tries to scream, she finds a way past the cloth over her mouth and bites down hard. He flattens his weight against her once more, cursing as he pulls his hand back. Roughly, he grabs her by the hair to hold her head still before tying the cloth around her head, making sure she's tightly gagged. He returns his attention to his pants. She hears him spit then feels his hands on her, spreading her buttocks and she cries around the gag as he forces himself inside of her. Tears run down her cheeks. She tries to struggle against his weight but he has her thoroughly pinned. It's over in a few short minutes. He pulls out and paints her back with his release. She can do nothing more than shake with silent sobs as the man stands and fastens his pants. Through eyes filled with tears, she tries to get a look at him as he leaves. 

A few minutes pass before one of the sisters enters. The woman comes quickly to her bedside, whispering comforting words and stroking her hair and upper back, though without removing the cloth gag from around her head. One of the temple’s guards is the next to enter the room several minutes later, followed by the Head Sister.

"Well, my dear, it looks as if you have an interested buyer." Leissha turns to the temple guard, a woman clad in a leather bodysuit, reinforced for protection. "Get her up, we need to make her presentable."

The temple guard nods and steps to the side of the bed, grabbing her arm to pull her up. The sister who had been comforting her moves a hand to where the cloth is knotted at the back of her head. Before she can untie it, the Head Sister shakes her head.

✽✽✽

"Did she struggle," the man in the shadows asks as his servant steps into the dimly lit room.

"Yes, my lord." The servant flexes his hand a couple of times before giving it a good shake. "She bit me, though I got her under control before she could draw blood."

If the sole light in the room fell upon his face, the servant would have been able to see the corners of the man's lips curl into a smile. "Good. If she were truly docile, I would find her much less interesting. Please inform Head Sister Leissha that I am ready to take possession of the girl and then head back to the ship."

"Of course, my lord." The servant offers a quick but polite bow and leaves.

✽✽✽

Two of the temple's guards, their faces obscured behind veils that leave only their eyes uncovered, escort her from the cleansing room. After washing away the evidence of the man who she guesses is either her soon-to-be Master or one sent by him or her to _sample_ her, attendants had dressed her in a silky robe the color of crushed Oi-oi berries. Unlike the ones she’d become used to wearing around the temple, this one tied closed with a sash that sat just above her hips. The top half was left open enough for the potential buyer to see the smoothness of her skin from her neck to just below her navel without baring her breasts. The nails of her fingers and toes had been lacquered in a red darker than the color of freshly spilt blood.

She hated that they hadn't removed the strip of fabric the man had first tried to use to muffle her screams and had resorted to gagging her with. If this caliber of client was here to consider one of the temple's more recent acquisitions, the Head Sister couldn't risk the girl mouthing off, no matter how unlikely that scenario is.

The guards keep their tight grips on her arms as she's brought to a stop under the sole light in a dimly lit room.

"This is her," a silky voice asks from the near darkness of a chair a few meters in front of her. She can't see the man beyond a faint outline, but his accent is sophisticated, clipped in the aristocratic way of a few she's known in her life. There's a warmth to it she had not expected. And a youth. She hopes it is not the same man from earlier.

"Yes, my lord," the Head Sister answers.

"She _is_ a pretty little thing."

"She's proven to be a quick study, my lord...in most areas. Her skills with fellatio have much improved in the few weeks she’s been with us. She moves quite gracefully and excels at the more standard servile tasks. Though her patience leaves much to be desired. She is...always eager, it seems."

The man hums in response. She wants to be embarrassed to be spoken of in such a way, but the truth in the Head Sister's statement is already making itself evident as thoughts she is not entirely sure are her own come unbidden to her mind - what the shadowed man with the warm, sophisticated voice looks like, how his cock would feel filling her mouth, or what it would feel like to have his fingers inside her, feeling the wetness gather between her thighs. These thoughts shock her, but she puts them down to the weeks surrounded by a near constant sensuality and the deprivation of her release the last several days having left her wanting far more than she's ever been before. Hells, she wishes she could see what he looks like.

"Some we get here fight against the idea of having a Master, but I've seen no such compunction in her as of yet," the Head Sister adds. "On a more general note, she speaks several languages: Huttese and Twi'leki, in addition to Basic. She also understands Sullustese, Mando'a, and some Shyriiwook, among other less common languages."

There's a shifting of fabric as the man stands, moving fully into the reach of the shaded lamplight over her head. He's finely dressed in predominantly dark shades with accents in something lighter. His hair, like his clothing, she can't determine the color with the insufficient, bronze-tinted lighting in the room, is pulled back and his beard is precisely trimmed. She’s certain this is not the same man from before. Her eyes widen slightly as he studies her, for though he hasn't yet laid a finger on her, she feels his presence all over and even through her. His eyes are golden. She hopes it is merely a trick of the light. 

The guards on either side of her step back slightly while still maintaining their grip as the man steps up, examining her from various angles as though she were livestock. She doesn't know why they bother, her arms are cuffed at her biceps and wrists, with rigid bars between the cuffs instead of chains to ensure she cannot move but so she's not terribly uncomfortable. Either way, she's not going anywhere. He nods and each of the guards lightly takes the edges of her robe, easing it open so he can examine her breasts. He reaches out with a gloved hand to gently run the back of his fingers around one of her breasts, finishing the motion with a circling brush of this thumb on her nipple. It hardens and perks in response. He does the same to the other. The darkness radiating off the man as he looks her up and down, circling her slowly as if she were prey, is tangible even without her grasp of the deeper Force. And quite enough to keep her rooted. That, and the lingering thought that her own people have abandoned her.

He moves in closer, somehow without touching her, without even a brush of the heavy fabric of his coat, and whispers in her ear. "Is it true, my dear? Are you always eager," he asks in Mando'a.

Her eyes flutter closed against her will as the sensuality of his voice travels through her body and settles in her nether regions in a not entirely natural way.

A sharp sting of pain against her left cheek. Her head twists to her right. He's backhanded her and now, with a gloved hand, he grabs her by the chin and forces her to face him. "You will continue to look at me until I say otherwise. Do you understand?" The buttery warmth is gone from his voice, replaced by cold durasteel.

She nods, trying to keep the tears that have formed in the corner of her eyes from falling.

Keeping his firm grip on her chin, he holds his other gloved hand out to the side. A small, wiry servant steps up and removes the glove for him, falling back into the shadows of the room. The man, who had never taken his golden eyes off her face, moves his bare hand across her breasts once more, then down her body to in between her legs. A few clicks and the infernal contraption the sisters had fitted her with to keep her from touching herself is no longer blocking access to her sex. Temporarily, she assumes. He rubs nimble fingers, still warm from having been encased in the supple leather of his glove, along her folds, already wet, as promised by the Head Sister. He teases her clit and she's careful to keep her eyes open and locked on his.

Her lower lip trembles despite the gag in her mouth.

He slowly, purposefully, pushes one finger inside her, curling and circling to feel as much of her as he can for the moment. It's exquisite. He adds a second. Her breath hitches, she's going to come. There’s a push deep inside of her, more than what she expects from the simple act of two fingers reaching and teasing. She tries to fight it. The hand holding her chin moves to her throat. He squeezes gently, leaning in to whisper in her ear, again in Mando'a, the sensual warmth back in his voice, "You don't have to hold out, little one. Let yourself go. Take your pleasure."

The orgasm she's been craving for days wracks through her body. The man has somehow managed to keep her upright even though she knows her knees should give way at any moment. He continues to finger her, slowing his pace as her orgasm wanes. Is it just her imagination or are his eyes actually glowing?

Much to her surprise, she remains standing as he pulls his fingers from her, his gloved hand still on her throat though no longer applying pressure. He brings his bare hand, the one he used to relieve her suffering, to his mouth, sucking her juices off his long, thin fingers. He holds his hand out, the servant steps forward, first with a towel to clean his hand fully, then to put the leather glove back on. He's not once removed his gaze from her.

"Patience, I can work on," he says to the Head Sister, all business in his tone as he finally steps away from her. "Her eagerness will not be a problem for me."

"Very good, my lord."

"Have her cleaned up. I'll have one of my servants bring some appropriate clothing."

With that, the man turns and leaves. The Head Sister gestures to the guards and quickly follows the man out. The actual business end of the transaction, the buying and selling of goods, or in this case, her, must happen elsewhere in the temple.

No one speaks as she's guided out of the room and back to the cleansing baths. This time, the gag is removed from around her head, leaving an odd taste on her tongue. Thankfully, the attendants take care to rinse her mouth. Clothing arrives from her new...Master? It feels strange to use the term in a wholly different context than the one in which she was raised. But that world is gone to her and she must adapt. For now. She knows she should consider herself lucky. As Leissha had said that first day, there are far worse places she could have found herself than at a "temple" run by women who made it their duty to train and trade in high quality sex slaves in the galaxy. Though _how_ she ended up here is still a mystery.

The dress she's been given isn't entirely see-through, though it leaves little to the imagination. The top consists of two long pieces of sheer fabric that tie together at the back of her neck. The strips are wide enough that they can be bunched and spread in various places to cover the breasts of the wearer. Minimally so, but she thinks it's better than nothing. Her back is completely uncovered as the pieces that form the front connect with the skirt just below her natural waist. The fabric of the floor-length skirt is not nearly as sheer, but there are slits at the front of each thigh that are so high she's sure that no part of her will truly be hidden. They're high enough she can see the leather bands on her upper thighs that hold the obnoxious contraption in place over her sex. _So her new_ Master _doesn't want her to touch herself either_ , she thinks ruefully. The dark green of the dress makes her skin look pale but not sickly as she examines herself in the mirror. On some worlds, dressed like this, she might not even be mistaken for a pleasure slave or a whore. She hopes that thought will never make her smile.

Her fingers push back the hair behind her right ear. In place of the braid that denoted her previous life, or near enough to it, she examines the small tattoo behind her right ear. She noticed it before but she’s still not sure of the meaning as it is a design she hasn't seen before and the placement doesn't match any of the information on the slave trade she can remember reading.

As far as she knew, she had no belongings with her when she arrived - she'd assumed they'd been taken by the pirates or destroyed with the rest of the convoy - and so she takes nothing with her when she leaves. The servant from the room where the mysterious man examined his merchandise, meets her and her temple guard escort in the hangar. No words are exchanged as he leads her onboard a sleekly designed ship she can only describe as a personal yacht. Luxurious but still understated. And likely fast.

The man, her Master, is in the cockpit of the ship. He turns his pilot's chair to take in her appearance. She sees now that his hair and beard are the color of cinnamon. The gold of his eyes has dimmed and they're almost blue. He's young. Not as young as she is, but younger than she had expected.

"Welcome aboard the _Tracinya_ ," he says.

She begins to bow, but thinks better of it when she feels the way the sheer fabric shifts over her skin, and settles for a small curtsey. "Thank you, Master."

The gold is back in his eyes now.

"Sit," he demands, gesturing to the copilot's seat.

She does as she's told. Seated, she looks first out the canopy and then at the instruments and indicators that litter the control panels in front of her, feeling his eyes as they rake over her body from her exposed back and sides to her legs, completely exposed as well due to the placement of the slits in the skirt. They didn't even give her any slippers or boots.

"Strap in," he says after several long moments of drinking in her appearance. He secures his own harness and guides the ship out of the hangar, over the city beneath them, and out into the black of space without another word to her.

She's been taught her place. She knows not to speak unless spoken to, and only then if he requests an answer.

He enters the calculations for the hyperspace jump and, when the indicator flashes, pushes the lever forward. Whatever world it was she'd spent the last several weeks on is behind her now. Her only future is set by the whims of the man next to her.

"Come here," she hears him say. She unbuckles her safety harness and stands, turning towards him, head lowered, awaiting her Master's next command.

"Kneel," he says, taking her hand and guiding her to the space in front of him. He's undone his own harness and leaned his chair back slightly to lounge more comfortably. He spreads his legs wide to give her room to place her knees on the cold deck directly in front of him. "Shall we test the Head Sister's claims that you have a talented little mouth?" His eyes are fairly glowing again as he looks at her, something between a smirk and a sneer angling the corner of his mouth.

Without a word, she reaches forwards, running her hands slowly along his thighs as she makes her way to his belt. One thumb teases his hardening bulge as her other hand gently pulls at the clasps of the leather. She leans in to lick and blow at the skin just below his navel as she undoes the bindings at the waist of his pants, easing them aside and freeing his erection. His breathing doesn't change and he makes no sound as he leans back and watches her drag the tip of her tongue from the base of his cock to the tip, where she teases lightly at the opening. Her hands move across his thighs once more as she swirls her tongue around the head of his erection, not yet wrapping her lips around him.

She sneaks a glance up at him, but there's no indication of enjoyment, only the taste of a few drops of precum on her tongue. Returning her eyes to the muscles clearly visible on what little she can see of his torso, she takes him in hand and drops her mouth around his length. She needs her hand to stroke the lower portion of his large cock until she gets her jaw and soft palate warmed up enough to take him fully. _He must have remarkable control_ , she thinks as she raises back up to tease him again with just her tongue.

As she lowers her mouth back down the length of him, she feels his fingers comb through her hair. Finally drawing a reaction from him,, she's about to come back up to repeat the motion with her tongue when he tightens his grip and pushes her back down.

He resists the urge to drive his hips up and force himself down her throat, though he plants the image in her mind that that is the end result should she not get a move on herself. He feels the wave of hot desire the mental image sends through her.

Shifting her weight in front of him, she opens her throat and digs her fingernails into her palms, wishing she could touch the Force to help control her gag reflex. She uses her mouth to fuck him, her Master, uncurling her hands and grabbing at his hips to help leverage herself so she can take him fully. His fingers gripping her hair, he pushes her down his length. Over and over. Her knees are beginning to hurt and her jaw is getting sore, but she won't let up now. She doesn't think he'd let her even if she tried.

And still, the steady rhythm of his breathing never changes. Not even when he comes, hot and salty, into her mouth, hips thrusting up to empty his seed down her throat. She keeps taking him with her mouth until he finally stills her with the grip on her hair.

The golden glow is back in his eyes as he guides her to standing and pulls her in to straddle his lap. He kisses her fiercely, hands twisting in her hair and teeth bruising her tender lips.

Releasing her with some effort, he brusquely tells her she may go.

"Yes, Master," she says, voice hoarse and throat raw, tinged with disappointment at her own unsatisfied arousal. He smiles wickedly to himself as she leaves the cockpit, pleased with his decision to leave the sisters' contraption in place for the time being.

She hadn't been shown where her quarters are on the ship but she finds a sofa in what she assumes is a lounge her Master must use when he's entertaining guests. She curls up against the cold of space, wishing she had something more substantial than the revealing dress of a pleasure slave to keep her warm. She'd even take one of the old scratchy brown cloaks she never particularly liked if it meant she didn't have to be so cold.

She's been laying here for some time shivering, unable to sleep, when she hears his bootfalls down the corridor. Quickly she sits up, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Remembering her current position in the galaxy nearly too late, she stands just before he enters the lounge, dropping into a deep curtsey while keeping her eyes at his feet.

"You should be in bed," he says, voice warm and tired and...kind?

"Yes, Master," she begins nervously, "Only I was not told where I was to sleep."

He sighs and she can imagine him rubbing his fingers across his brow in frustration.

"This way," he says, only a hint of exasperation making it through in his tone.

She shuffles behind him back down the corridor towards the cockpit. He makes a left into another short corridor before reaching the cockpit door. "You'll be in here," he says with something akin to kindness as he taps the door control. The door opens to reveal a small but well furnished room with a bed large enough to comfortably sleep two, a small desk, and a closet a quarter full with what she assumes are outfits of a similar vein to the one she is currently wearing. "I'll get you more clothing when we reach our destination," he adds, having seen her gaze alight on the closet. He gestures back out into the corridor at a door across the way and a little farther down. "My quarters are there, but you'll be in your own most of the time. I keep mine locked but yours will remain unlocked in the event I desire your services."

"Of course, Master." When she looks up at him, much of the gold is gone, just a ring of it separating the blue from his dark pupils. It's surprisingly beautiful, she finds herself thinking. There's something familiar about the man but she can't put her finger on it. Her lips nearly break into a slight smile, but it isn't one that would have reached her eyes.

He catches her arm as she turns into her room. "We'll discuss more of this...arrangement, tomorrow morning." His eyes take in her body once more, lingering an extra few moments on the leather straps on her thighs. His earlier smirk returns, knowing that she'll now be thinking about them too. Knowing that he holds her pleasure in his power.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for this chapter are the same as for the previous chapter so please mind the tags.

In the morning, after a fitful night of sleep, she looks through the garments hung in the closet, trying to find the least sheer and revealing one available. She settles on a silky, high-necked halter dress in a deep blue that will still leave her back exposed. Like most of the others, the skirt is slit, though with only one straight up the middle in the front and only to about her mid-thigh. She finds a pair of slip-on shoes in a matching color and sets them aside for later. Exiting her room, she heads in the direction of the cockpit, knowing she'll find her master there though the senses she would normally rely on are still non-existent.

"Good, you're awake," he says in his clipped accent as she steps into the cockpit, not turning to look at her. "We have a few more hours in hyperspace. Time enough for a morning meal and to discuss my expectations."

He stands and leads the way out of the cockpit to the ship's galley barely sparing a glance in her direction. His appearance is as put together as it was when he'd escorted her to her room the night before: black, well-fitted pants tucked into boots of worn, black leather. The snugly fitted shirt tucked into his pants is more casual, but she knows it could easily be dressed up with additional layers as he'd had several on the day before. As she walks quietly along behind him, she wonders at the length of his hair, pulled back into the knot at the back of his head.

Instead of turning right to the corridor with her sleeping quarters, he takes a left, followed by a right into the galley. "You can make tea," he asks.

"Yes, Master," she answers quietly and moves past him to begin heating the water. It registers in the back of her mind that he leaned briefly in towards her as she slid past him.

He watches as she looks through the various options for leaves, settling on one with a bold flavor that will steep quite dark. She drops some of the leaves into the hot water. His gaze is neither friendly nor malicious as he nods his approval, the gold visibly seeping into the blue. She thinks she should be more afraid than she is if what she suspects of him is true, but she has yet to see him kill anyone and she's seen no trace of a lightsaber.

"There are rations in the cupboard behind you," he says as she pours the tea over the strainer in his cup. She sets the kettle aside and turns to find the rations he spoke of. An image of him coming up behind her, strong hands pulling at and wrapping around her hips, him leaning down to kiss and suck at her neck before pushing her forward at the waist and lifting the silky blue fabric of her skirt up over her buttocks plants itself in her mind and her breath momentarily hitches. It's gone from her head as quickly as it came, but she's left panting with desire. Her face is flushed as she sets a few rations on the counter between them, glancing up to see his golden eyes boring into her.

He takes a drink of his tea then gestures for her to join him. "We'll be landing in Sundari late this morning. From the spaceport, we'll go to the main market to purchase more clothing for you, though while we're in transit on the ship or at my home, I will encourage a _certain style_ of dress. For the time being," he says as he traces gentle curves across the bare skin of her back with calloused fingers, leaving gooseflesh in his wake. She knows she's going to have to change her dress before they leave the ship, for while the damned contraption between her legs keeps her from providing herself with any relief, it does nothing to stem the flow of wetness that his touch induces. She's almost certain she's leaking through the silky fabric.

"I must say, I did not expect you to be so quiet when I purchased you," he leans closer to whisper in her ear. The hairs of his mustache and beard tickle the sensitive skin there, sending a shiver through her body.

"My apologies, Master. This is a situation I'm not entirely used to. I don't want to overstep or displease you," she says. Her own accent is not all that dissimilar from his, though softer and not nearly as clipped.

"That brings me to another topic," he begins, interspersing light, suckling kisses starting at her ear and moving down her neck as he speaks. "For now, you will refer to me as 'my lord' not as 'Master,' though I do so enjoy the way it sounds. You will be accompanying me to social gatherings - dinners, parties and such - not as a purchased commodity but as my companion, though a lesser in social standing."

"I understand, my lord," she says breathlessly, leaning into him as his lips continue to trail across her exposed skin.

A low growl rumbles up from his chest as he pulls her off her chair and into his lap. "So very compliant." He bites hard at her ear lobe and scratches his short, manicured nails down her back. Grabbing her backside, he hoists her up to sit on the edge of the counter, pushing her skirt up and roughly undoing the locks that hold the leather straps around her thighs. Throwing the whole contraption across the room, it clatters beautifully against the wall. She can only hope he's broken it. He sits back down and buries his mouth between her legs. No gentle teasing, no preamble, just lapping, nipping, and straight tongue fucking. It's gorgeous, she thinks. The reckless abandon with which he gives into his carnal desires. At this moment, she’s sure she'd let him do this to her in a room crowded with Republic senators if he wanted. His thumbs dig painfully into her hips as he holds her steady, taking his fill. He sucks at her excess and digs his tongue back in. She wishes she didn't need her hands to help hold herself up, longing to loosen the tie that holds his hair back and run her fingers through it, to grab and pull and make him feel some of the pain she feels from his nipping hard at her sensitive folds.

He works her over and over, up and up until she can't hold out any longer. She cries out as her muscles contract. His tongue continues its assault on her sex through each wave of her orgasm, heedless of its effect on her overestimulated organs. He's much stronger than his lithe body would have her believe as he keeps her hips from rocking when the next orgasm pulses its way through her body. More cries and a string of curses in various languages escape her lips. Her arms are shaking from exhaustion as he slows his pace, pulling back momentarily. He lays the flat of his tongue against her and licks, gathering as much of her release as he can while she continues to shudder and pant unevenly.

He swallows as he stands, wiping a hand across his mouth. She glimpses the wetness, her orgasm, in his beard as it shines in the low lights before he's pressing his still hungry mouth to hers, forcing her lips apart to admit his tongue. She draws in a sharp breath as his fingers dig inside her still sensitive sex. It doesn't take him long to build up another orgasm inside of her. With a hand gripping her hair at the nape of her neck, he pulls her mouth off his. Leaning into her ear again, voice rough and unforgiving, he whispers, "Once more for me, _my little whore."_ The last words he emphasizes, speaking them in harsh Huttese.

Whether he could feel her about to explode when he whispered his instruction or whether it was his words that spurned her on, a third orgasm rolls through her. He lets her cries echo through the galley before kissing her again. She can taste the salt of her own tears mixing with the taste of her left on his tongue, unsure when they'd started to fall.

When he leaves off her, pushing back the stray hairs that have worked their way out of the knot at the back of his head, she can see his eyes are glowing once again. "Get yourself cleaned up," he says coldly. "It shouldn't be long before we're on Mandalore." He turns on his heel and leaves her sitting in the galley alone.

She slides gingerly off the counter, testing the strength in still shaking legs. She begins to go but reconsiders, returning to the counter to grab two of the ration packs she'd gotten out of the cupboard. He didn't explicitly mention what she was to do about food, but she assumes he doesn't intend to starve her. Unwrapping one, she eats quickly as she makes her way to her quarters. The other she'll save until after her shower.

She's not surprised to find the shower in the refresher attached to her quarters is several steps above the quality she's used to. The water warms quickly and the water pressure lasts long enough to wash her long auburn hair. He's provided her with luxuriously soft and scented cleansing products that cause a twinge of guilt to work through her. She was not raised to luxuriate in such fine things while her mission had always been to help those who suffer. She's not sure how to reconcile the two, or if it's even possible.

Exiting the refresher, a silky robe wrapped around her body and a fuzzy towel wrapped around her hair, she sees a stack of folded fabric on the bed. She looks around her room to see if he's concealed himself in one of the shadows but she shakes off the ridiculous idea and unfolds what turns out to be dark grey leggings and a long navy blue sleeveless tunic. The tunic is a heavy fabric with fine silver embroidery along the edges, hemmed low in the back so it's brushing her calves, the hem curving up and around to meet in the center front of her body, just above her hips. It's also fitted tightly to her body, pushing her breasts up to give the appearance of more there than she really has. She slips on the dark grey boots that were sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. The overall look is elegant and feminine, but with an expectation of power. Power she does not have. 

She removes the towel from her head and gets to work on pulling back her hair in a way she hopes he'll find acceptable.

She finds him exactly where she thought she would, in the cockpit of the ship. Without asking or waiting for an invitation, she sits in the copilot's seat and straps in just as the hyperspace warning goes off. She looks over at him, comparing his appearance to her own. He wears black pants and boots, the same style, if not the same ones, she’s seen him in since he had purchased her. The casual long-sleeved black shirt from earlier in the morning is still there, but a leather tunic in a grey so dark it may as well be black, is fastened over top. Over that is a grey overcoat that more closely matches the color of her leggings and the style of her own tunic. He pulls back on the lever and the mottled blue and white is replaced by a desolate-looking planet. She knows the history of Mandalore, of the near-continuous wars that have made most of the surface inhospitable if not uninhabitable.

He guides the ship towards the southern hemisphere where most of the domed cities are located. The man over the comms he gives his landing clearance to speaks Basic. "Welcome back, my lord," the voice on the other end says and she wonders if Sundari is his home. 

Upon landing, she follows as he stands and makes his way through the ship towards the ramp. It's still up, two men waiting patiently on either side. She shudders, recognizing the one on the left as the man who'd gagged her and shoved his cock into her.

Her Master turns her to face him. "Neither of them will lay a finger on you," he says, sensing her fear. "Unless I order them to," he adds, almost as an afterthought. Reaching into a pocket inside his overcoat - did she see a flash of silver? - he pulls out a folded pair of leather arm wraps, the same dark grey as her leggings. "Sundari can get a little cold, you'll be thankful for these later today." He helps her slide her arms into each one. They reach all the way from above her biceps down past her wrists, hooking around her thumbs. Already she feels warmer. He offers her his arm and when she takes it, he leans in and whispers, "You look lovely." The man on the right hits the control to lower the ramp and the light of a Sundari day creeps into the ship.

True to his word, the first place they go, arm in arm, is the city’s main market. One of the men from the ship - not the one from the temple - follows them, taking care of the transactions whenever her Master decides something is worth buying and ensuring the merchandise gets to where it needs to go. She vaguely wonders where the other servant is, the one who brought her aboard his ship. When she eventually gathers up the nerve to ask, he answers with an unconcerned wave of his hand. "I found I no longer had need of his services." Behind his voice, she reads a lingering hint of anger. He sees the confusion on her face as she tries to parse additional meaning from his words. The image of her standing barefoot and cold in the deep green dress she'd worn onto his ship in the lounge, her saying that she was not told where she would be sleeping, flashes into her mind. Her eyes widen at the implication.

He takes her hand, returns it to his arm and they continue their shopping. By the time he leads her toward the palace, she has a number of new dresses, overdresses, tunics, and leggings in fabrics that are soft, warm, much thicker, and more practical than the sheer, silky dresses that hang in the closet on the ship. She sighs in relief as she really is to play the part of companion and not the pleasure slave she really is. 

Their next stop is the palace, where they are led directly into the throne room, the Duchess of Mandalore awaiting them. Him, she amends. The Duchess seems surprised by her presence at his side.

"Your Highness," he begins, kneeling. Next to him, she imitates his pose. "It is a pleasure to see you again."

"Of course, my lord," the Duchess says, stepping down from her dais and offering her hand to him. "Though I expected you hours ago."

"We...had some shopping to do and your markets here in Sundari have few equals, even in the Core" he says, standing and placing his lips on the back of the Duchess's hand. He indicates for her to stand as well and she fights the urge to keep her eyes on the floor, lifting her chin to meet the cold, blue gaze of the Duchess.

"I was not aware you were bringing a...guest," the Duchess says, her tone matching the ice in her eyes. "Shall I have a second room prepared?"

"My apologies, your Highness," her Master replies smoothly. "Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce Ykané Pasza. And thank you for your generosity, but a second room will not be necessary."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, your Highness," Ykané says sweetly, shoving down the shock at hearing him use her name for the first time. Her full name. She wasn't even sure he knew it, though she should have guessed the sisters would have included that information as part of the purchase agreement.

The Duchess nods curtly and eyes the young woman from head to toe. "I'll have another place set for the banquet," she says absently. Turning to him, she adds, "I do hope your shopping was successful and the girl has something _appropriate_ for the occasion." With that, the Duchess strides gracefully past them both and exits the throne room.

He takes her arm in his and guides her from the room as well. They're met by a royal guardsman who takes them to where they will be lodged for the duration of their visit to the palace. Luggage he'd had sent over from the ship and the numerous items he purchased for her at the market are already in the room when they step through the door. She keeps the awe from showing on her face and tries her best not to gasp as she takes in the accommodations they've been provided. She's never seen a personal room, make that rooms, so opulent.

When she comes back into the bedroom after tidying her hair and applying some makeup he's waiting with a dress of deep crimson with black stitching. It's nearly a direct contrast with his high-neck, black brocade tunic, accented with black leather and red stitching and is fitted perfectly to his lithe form. He looks wickedly beautiful as he comes up behind her as she holds the dress up to her body in the mirror.

He wraps a hand around her waist and takes the dress from her hands. "Take this off," he says in her ear as the hand at her waist begins undoing the clasps holding her dark blue tunic together in the front.

She complies, placing her hand over his as she finishes the task he started. He steps back to lay the new dress on the bed but quickly rejoins her.

"You hadn't used my name before," she says as she lets the tunic fall open, reaching for the top of one of the grey arm bands.

He doesn't respond as he stops her, preferring to take them off her himself. She leans her back to his chest as his fingers make their way down each arm in turn. He lets the arm bands drop to the floor and slowly pulls her tunic completely open, sliding it off her shoulders and arms, leaving her bare from the waist up.

"Is it silly if I say I wasn't even sure you knew it? Or cared to know it?"

He rubs a hand gently across her stomach. "Ykané," he begins.

"Yes, my lord," she asks quietly as his fingers near the top edge of her leggings.

"Keep your chin up around the Duchess." He slides his hand under the waistband of her leggings. "She can smell fear," he adds with a smirk as his fingers reach the soft curls of her pubic hair.

"And if anyone asks where I'm from or how I came to be--," Ykané pauses, her breath hitching slightly as he begins to stroke her clit softly. "How I came to be here, on your arm tonight, my lord?"

"You are from Coruscant, are you not, my darling," he asks as his other hand moves down from her shoulder to grab her breast.

"I...I am," she stutters, partly from the shock that he would know that and partly from the work of his hands on her body. She forces herself to focus through the distraction. "Though I was not born there."

"You sound as though you were and that is what matters to these people." The anger that bleeds through his voice also manifests in the hard pinch he gives to her nipple. The anger is quickly gone and he returns to the gentle stroking. "As for the rest, I leave it to you to decide what story you tell of your past, as long as they do not discover the truth."

She can't decide if he means before or after the convoy was attacked. Possibly both. But that would mean he knows what she is. _Was_. She’s nearly certain she knows what _he_ is. Given her current position, even if she had irrefutable proof, there would be nothing she could do. Her connection to the Force is...well, she feels cut off from it entirely. She tells herself that's the only thing that would stop her, though the longer he has his hand between her legs, the less sure she becomes. If he is what she thinks he is, he's likely already digging into her mind, sensing her warring thoughts.

"How much of the truth do _you_ know, my lord?"

"Enough," he says, barely a whisper against the shell of her ear. The hand that had been massaging her breasts is now on her stomach, pressing her back into him, holding her up and steady as he brings her calmly and quietly to climax, a feat she hadn’t realized was possible. He brings his fingers, wet with her orgasm, to her mouth. She's careful not to mess up her lipstick too much as she licks and sucks the taste of herself from them.

She stands there, eyes closed, revelling in the peaceful feeling that has washed over her, hearing the heavy steps of his boots retreat and return. When she opens them, he's in front of her with a damp towel. He gently wipes around her mouth with a corner of the towel and dabs it at the come left on her lips before he kneels in front of her and pulls down her leggings, inviting her to step out of them. He then takes the towel and wipes gently between her legs, cleaning her.

He tosses the towel back towards the bathroom and grabs the dress off the bed. Her Master unhooks the back and holds it open for her to step into. She's glad for his strength as the dress fits quite snugly around her middle. It has a high, stiff collar much like his, but there’s a cut out like a segment of a circle, the curve of the arc exposing the cleavage created by the fact that the dress, like the blue tunic, is pushing her breasts up somewhat unnaturally. The skirt is not full, but it's not tightly fitted either, with a higher hem in the front than in the back, where it drags on the floor. The sleeves are long and fitted down to the elbow where they flare out somewhat dramatically.

He brings her a pair of black boots that fit over her knees, negating the necessity for leggings under the dress. She supposes it's fitting that she feels exposed even though her body will be covered.

"Are we ready, darling?"

"Yes, my lord."

She takes his offered arm, concentrating on keeping her shoulders back to match his effortlessly straight posture, and they exit their rooms. He needs no guide as they make their way to the throne room which has been transformed into a banquet hall for the dinner party. _Surely the palace has a room that serves such a function without having to alter this one,_ she thinks. But the view of the city, even what she can see of the dome overhead, is stunning. 

Ykané takes in as much as she can - she was trained to be observant. She smiles as she's introduced to people. Most look upon her with curiosity. Barely concealed hostility is reserved for the Duchess, it seems, who manages to twice steal her Master away. When it comes to the questions she had been concerned about others asking, her Master was correct, Coruscant is a perfectly acceptable answer for most when they ask where she is from. The few that ask what she does there are easily placated when she says, "Philanthropy." It's not wholly untrue, it only makes her out to be the bored daughter of a politician or a sycophant.

"And how did you happen to meet Lord Aurvan," the Duchess intones haughtily as she makes her way into the conversation, arm in arm with her Master. He clears his throat and leaves the Duchess's side for Ykané's, placing a soft kiss on her cheek.

"We met on Berchest, where she was arranging a donation of goods for local shelters," he covers smoothly for her.

She files away the name of the planet to look up later, wondering if that's where the sisters' temple is or if it is just a place he pulled from his memory. Assuming he'll allow her access to a datapad. She also now has a name for him, though it isn't one she can remember hearing before. His familiarity is still nagging at the back of her mind.

The rest of the dinner party passes uneventfully and without further incident, for which she is thankful. Her Master escorts her back to their room and helps her out of the dress.

"What would you like from me, my lord? Tonight, I mean," she asks timidly, unsure if he expects what the sisters taught as proper protocol as she stands naked in front of him, her hands on his chest.

He takes a measured breath, removing her hands but holding on to them as he takes a step back. He looks her over and chews his lower lip. "Tonight, my darling, I want you to sleep. The Duchess and I have some matters to discuss and I'm afraid I will be back rather late." He steps towards her and kisses her firmly but not so passionately that it will keep him from leaving.

When the door closes behind him, her shoulders drop, tension receding from her body, replaced with a small sense of relief. She digs through the luggage and the day's purchases for something to sleep in, eventually finding a soft slip that will do, though it provides less coverage than she would like. After pulling it over her head, she removes all her makeup, braids her hair and climbs into the soft bed.

✽✽✽

The door to the Duchess's rooms slams open and Lord Aurvan storms in, his anger boiling over. "What the hell was all of that about, Satine?"

"You could have at least given me some warning you were bringing your newest toy with you, _my lord,_ " she yells in return as the door closes behind him.

He scrubs a hand down his face. "She is _not_ a toy! This one has real potential," he counters.

"Are you serious, Ben,” the Duchess spits. “She's barely more than a child. How did you manage to steal her away from the Temple?"

"She's twenty-three and I did not steal her away!” The rage in him settles a bit with a controlled breath in and out through his nose. More quietly, he adds, “Not directly anyhow."

Satine snorts, knowing there's more to that answer than she wants to know. She begrudgingly hands him a glass of wine now that the initial _pleasantries_ are out of the way. 

He sits at her table and they sip at their wine as they discuss trade routes, regional politics, and her own planet’s continuing internal strife, arguments flaring between them on occasion. Several glasses in and they're finally able to reminisce without angling for one another's throats. Ben briefly wonders how, years after their intimate relationship had turned solely to friendship, he and Satine still manage to push each other’s buttons so thoroughly. He shakes away that thought before reaching out in the Force to sense if his little project is sleeping.

"She seems a little too quiet for your usual tastes," Satine says with a laugh, guessing at where his thoughts had drifted.

"She's really not," he answers with a smirk, reminded of her loud cries and strings of curses as he ravaged her with his mouth that morning on the ship.

"What are you going to do if this one decides she'd rather try to kill you than join you when you tell her the truth, Ben," Satine asks sincerely.

Ben sighs. "I'm fairly certain she already knows the truth. At least some of it," he answers as he takes a moment to send an image to the mind of the young woman he knows is not entirely asleep in their shared bed. His black tunic open, chest bared as he lays back on the Duchess's bed, his hands gripping the hips of the beautiful blonde woman straddling him, her dressing gown slipped down to reveal her porcelain skin and large breasts heaving as she rides his cock. "But she's in no position to make any sort of move against me. Certainly not with the Force suppressor implant."

"You are a cruel one, _Lord Aurvan,_ " Satine says as she shakes her head.

“You have no idea, your highness.”

For good measure, he undoes the top half of his tunic as he saunters back to his and Ykané's room. He knows he smells of wine and the flowers the Duchess frequently uses in her hair. He also knows that though she had been referring to something else entirely, Satine is right, he's being deliberately cruel at the moment. He wants to know how his little pleasure slave is going to react. Will she be jealous? Or will she accept her place as one of powerlessness?

He enters the room quietly in case she has fallen asleep and undresses. Sliding naked under the covers, he reaches a hand out to grab her waist and pulls her close. He begins to fondle one of her breasts through the light gown she's worn to bed while pressing kisses to her shoulder blades, his beard scratchy against the skin of her back.

She grabs his hand firmly to stop his playing.

"I would reconsider that if I were you," he says dangerously in her ear.

She doesn't immediately let go, but she loosens her grip. "Did you buy me to parade around in front of your exes to make them jealous, my lord?" Her tone is sharper than she intends and a spike of fear runs through her.

"Who's the jealous one here," he counters, running his tongue along the skin behind her ear. He feels the shiver that worms its way down her body.

"My apologies, my lord. I...I'm only trying to understand my place," she says, releasing his hand in a conciliatory gesture. Too late.

He considers telling her that the image, the projection into her mind, wasn't real. But what kind of dark sider would he be if he gave in to the compassionate urges he sometimes felt. "Your place, Ykané Pasza, is to do _what_ I want, _when_ I want. And right now, I want to fuck you. Hard. For my pleasure and not yours." He wraps a hand around her throat and squeezes. "Do you understand your place now, _darling_?"

Unable to push sound past the pressure on her throat, she nods quickly. The new wave of fear that rolls through her sends a sharp blade of arousal through him.

He drops his hand from her throat back to her breasts, gripping her roughly as he bites at her neck. He pinches hard at her nipples before pushing her fully onto her stomach. Pushing her legs apart as he kneels between them, he grabs her by the hips, forcing her backside into the air, her hips off the bed. He pushes two fingers into her sex, pushing his thumb along her clit, and when he’s satisfied that she's wet enough, he lines up the head of his cock and pushes into her roughly.

She cries out, mostly in pain, as he buries himself, quickly, to the hilt inside of her. She cries out again as he pulls almost all the way out and hammers into her again. And again. Over and over. She tries to push herself up to at least her elbows, but he places a hand between her shoulder blades and shoves her back down. He grabs her hips, digging his fingers into her skin hard enough to bruise, and pulls her back against each new thrust, driving ever deeper into her. At some point, she registers that there is pleasure in this, but the pain severely outweighs any pleasure she might be feeling. She's not sure how much more she can take without blacking out.

Just as the telltale spots begin to appear on the edge of her vision, her Master empties himself into her with a rumbling moan. He pulls out and collapses on his back next to her, breathing hard. She's afraid to move, afraid he'll see the tears in her eyes. She wasn't a virgin, but she's never been taken like that before. And none of the young men she'd had at either the Temple or on Coruscant were as big as her new _Lord and Master_. She eventually rolls to her side, facing away from him as she had been before.

"Turn this way," he commands quietly.

She does as she's told, wiping her eyes before rolling over to face him. She curls back up into a ball as she reluctantly meets his eyes, surprised to see they're mostly blue. He's laying on his side, head propped up on his hand.

"Come here, my dear." He holds the edge of the covers up with his other hand, inviting her into his arms. She can see the chiseled muscles of his chest and abdomen in the remaining city lights pouring through the full-length windows in their bedroom. 

She scoots in closer and he wraps the covers and his arm around her. He pulls her in to place a kiss on the top of her head. He's warm and smells of wine and flowers. Focusing on his breathing, the steady in and out, the rise and fall of his chest, she eventually falls asleep.

When she wakes in the early morning, dawn light filtering first through Sundari's dome and then through the windows in their room, her head is nestled on his chest, just below his shoulder, one of her legs is tangled with his, the palm of her hand resting over his heart. She hears the steady breathing, but with his meticulous control, she cannot assume that means he is still asleep. She lifts her head slowly to peek at his face. His eyes are still closed and there's a peacefulness in his expression. During the night, some of the long ginger hair near his face had escaped the knot he keeps it in and the wisps of it frame his face in a sort of tragic beauty.

Ykané has no doubt in her mind what he is, not anymore. Laying here, seeing him in what is likely one of the only times he ever feels truly peaceful, she can see his past; the generalities of it, anyway. She doesn't need the Force to see what he had been. She doesn't even need to see the lightsaber he undoubtedly has stashed away somewhere in their room. _How did he fall_ , she wonders as she carefully returns her head to his chest so she can listen to the slow and steady rhythm of his heartbeat. She wishes she could place his face in her youthful memories of the Jedi Temple - she still sees something vaguely familiar in him. Perhaps without the beard she would recognize him for the man he was before.

She slides the hand that rested over his heart down the flat planes of his stomach and around to rest with her fingers curled around his side. She uses that soft grip to pull herself in closer to his warmth. The arm he has wrapped around her back tightens to hold her closer as well. She feels the ridges of a long-healed scar under her hand but she resists the temptation to explore it any further for the moment and drifts back to sleep.

The next time she wakes, she's alone in the bed. She sits up slowly, allowing her eyes to adjust to the full daylight pouring through the windows. She yawns and looks around the room for her Master, spotting him exiting the bathroom. He's not fully dressed for the day yet, moving about the room in what she assumes is the only color of pants he owns and a casual long-sleeved shirt, also in black and similar to the one he'd worn the previous morning. He's still barefoot.

"I informed Duchess Satine we would not be at breakfast this morning. She had some food sent up," he says, gesturing to a tray set on a table near the windows.

Ykané pulls the covers back and scoots her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the droplets of blood that have stained the sheets. She puts her feet on the floor to stand. Her sex is pained and raw from last night and every step feels like fire between her legs as she tries to conceal her discomfort. She's almost halfway to the table when he grabs her gently by the shoulders and steers her towards the bathroom. 

"First things first, my darling little one. I drew you a bath. It will help soothe some of the pain." He lifts the short hem of her sleeping gown, though "gown," she thinks is quite generous of a term for it. She takes his offered hand as she steps over the tall edge of the bathtub and into the warm, fragrant water. The soothing sensation he spoke of but that she was skeptical about is almost immediate. She sighs in relief as she immerses herself in the water.

He leaves the bathroom as she lays back and closes her eyes, opening them only when she hears his footsteps on the marbled floor. He's carrying a plate of food, which he sets on a small table he's pushed up next to the tub. She looks over the selection and grabs a piece of cheese. "Thank you, my lord," she says, her voice hoarse, before taking a bite of the cheese.

He looks at her as if he wants to say something, but instead he nods and begins to leave again.

"Would you," she clears her throat, trying to push past the pain that resides there as well. "Would you join me?"

He pauses at the doorway, weighing her request. She's only seen him fully undressed once - last night as he held the covers up for her to snuggle in close to him. Even in the dim lighting she could tell he had a beautiful body. Part of her longs to see it again, in the full light of day. _It was a shame that one so beautiful can be so cruel_ , she thinks sadly.

She watches through the open door as he removes his shirt and then his pants, laying them both neatly on the bed before returning to the bathroom. His muscles are long and lean, his cock impressive even in its flaccid state. She can see the scar she felt earlier this morning while he slept, along with other remnants and reminders of battles won or lost on his body. But the one on his side is by far the most prominent. "Slide forwards," he commands and she complies.

The warm water sloshes as he climbs in behind her. Once he's settled, she leans back against him. They sit in silence for a short time as she continues to nibble on the food.

"I was, perhaps, too hasty in my decision to bring you to Mandalore," he says, tracing his fingertips up and down her arm.

Ykané swallows down the bit of bread she'd been chewing. "I apologize for my behavior last night, my lord. I was out of line and I will not allow it to happen again."

She feels his chest move in a silent laugh against her back. The sigh that follows ruffles the hair at the back of her neck.

"The Duchess and I have not been intimate for a number of years. We spent the night discussing the region's economics and politics. Mandalore and the surrounding systems are not formally a part of the Republic. I provide what services I can to Duchess Satine and the other rulers to keep their systems safe. And to keep the Republic or some other entity from feeling the need to step in."

She considers the implications of his words. All of them, not just the part about how he hasn't had sex with the Duchess in some time. What sorts of services one man can provide, she can't help but wonder, supposing that targeted assassinations and intimidation are something she should expect from one who is fallen. And it would be perfectly reasonable for someone like that to actively attempt to make another jealous. _Why can't I just say the word_ , she thinks.

"Either way, my lord, it is not my place to be jealous."

"I was curious to see how you would react, Ykané, nothing more." He brushes the pieces of wet hair that managed to escape her braid off her neck and plants light kisses there. "As long as you are mine, I will be yours," he promises.

"How long am I to be yours," she can't stop herself from asking. She's not even sure what answer she wants to hear, and that, more than anything else, scares.

"That answer depends on a great many things, my darling."


	3. Art Refs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not part of the story, but I wanted to share some of the amazing art that provided inspiration for my evil bastard Dark Side!Obi-Wan because they are fantastic and I am in love...

tumblr:

https://teapirate.tumblr.com/post/158079733215 

https://teapirate.tumblr.com/post/183939879050 

https://teapirate.tumblr.com/post/617302306739863552 

https://argieart.tumblr.com/post/632053875937083392/au-where-obi-wan-is-tired-of-this-galactic-shit 

https://a-gan.tumblr.com/post/137393351511/you-were-my-master-the-closest-thing-i-had-to-a 

https://oggressivetrash.tumblr.com/post/623745178073694209 

instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDzJ9F6gIaG/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but Dark Side!Obi-Wan is at his worst in this one. So please mind the tags.

They depart Mandalore two days later. He'd allowed her that time to let herself heal though a part of her wished he hadn't felt the need to treat her as if she were broken. She'd fulfilled her duty as taught to her by the sisters by taking him with her mouth on multiple occasions during those two days, exploring the different ways of working her tongue or her jaw or her lips to alter the experience slightly. The feel of his fingers gripping her hair as he came into her mouth, gave her her own small feelings of power over him.

With the ship in hyperspace bound for Oskia, a planet she'd never before heard of, Ykané has returned to wearing the outfits that remind her more of her status. She'd changed out of a floor-length grey overdress and into a teal silk that covered only her breasts in the front but had a complicated criss-cross of fabric roping along her back. The top of the skirt scooped down well below her navel in front and nearly to her buttocks in back, though it was all one piece with no slits.

Now that she knew where the galley was, she went there after changing to make some tea. Her Master had purchased several more tins during their shopping excursion their first day in Sundari. Among these new ones, she is surprised to see her favorite from the Jedi Temple. She reaches for it but changes her mind. That life is behind her, at least for the foreseeable future. And even if she were to get herself out of this situation, who's to say if they would even allow her to return. Instead she opens one that she's heard of but never tried and sniffs at the leaves. The aroma is pleasant, fruity with a hint of spice. She shrugs to herself and sets the water to heat.

Pouring herself a cup, she begins to sit in front of the counter but remembers the cursed contraption from the sisters' temple her Master ripped off her in a fit of passion while she sat on the counter. The memory of his skillful tongue playing at the apex of her thighs sends a shiver down her spine and warms that area once more. She takes the cup as she explores the rest of the room, occasionally setting it down so she can look under the furnishings and shelving to see if she can find its broken pieces.

"I didn't throw it out," he says, amusement in his voice, "if that's what you were wondering."

She stands quickly, nearly knocking her cup of tea off the shelf she'd set it on. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear nervously and grabs her cup to take a sip before setting it back on the shelf.

"It is broken, however. Unfortunate incident with a wall. Not to worry, I'll have it fixed in a few days."

She steps quickly to him and though she tries, she is unable to keep the pleading tone out of her voice. "Is that really necessary, my lord? I give you my word that I won't touch myself, not unless you―"

He cuts her off with a backhanded slap to her face. Her hand goes immediately to her injured cheek, but he grabs her wrist and pulls it away. " _We_ do not beg," he spits.

_We?_ , she thinks, tears forming in the corners or her eyes. She's determined to not let them fall. 

But it seems he has other plans.

"Danir," he growls into the comm unit he’s pulled from his pocket.

A minute later, one of the two men - the one from the sisters' temple - steps into the galley. She attempts to pull out of her Master’s grip, to shrink away. She has yet to figure out who these men are or why they're on the ship beyond looking like bodyguards for someone who clearly does not need them.

"Yes, my lord?"

He gestures for Danir to join them and then turns to her. "On your knees," he whispers through gritted teeth.

Her legs shake as she kneels, her lower lip trembling. Her master takes a knee behind her, gathers up her hair in one fist and uses his other arm to pinion both of her arms behind her. He leans in to speak into her ear, though he speaks loudly enough for Danir to hear. "Danir here is going to fuck your mouth. You are not to move until he empties himself down your pretty little throat. Do you understand, whore?"

"Y...yes, my lord." The first tear escapes down her cheek.

At a nod from Lord Aurvan, Danir unfastens his pants, closing his eyes and getting himself hard with his hand. He opens his eyes and steps forwards unflinchingly. Her Master uses his painfully tight grip on her hair to tilt her head back slightly as she opens her mouth. A moan escapes Danir's throat as he slides his cock in and out of her mouth. His arousal continues to grow and the thrusts into her mouth and throat get rougher and rougher. Behind her, her Master holds her still through it all, not allowing her to give an inch though she desperately wants to back as far away as possible. Eyes clenched shut, she's fighting to keep her throat open and her gag reflex suppressed when a stifled cry erupts from Danir and his semen pours down her throat. She struggles to swallow as she wasn't prepared for his release. Unable to move her head, she raises her eyes as best she can to see him biting the knuckles of one hand. Speared through his heart is a glowing crimson blade.

The blade disappears and Danir crumples to the ground, still-leaking cock out. Ykané tries not to choke on what was left of Danir's semen in her mouth. That effort means she cannot scream. Her Master releases her and she scrambles quickly away from the scene, struggling too much to stand so she settles for cowering next to one of the chairs at the counter. She coughs and wipes at her eyes, then at her mouth, then coughs some more. Her eyes flick between the body of Danir, her stoic Master, and the disengaged lightsaber, elegantly constructed in black and silver. Her whole body is shaking so she pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them tightly.

When her Master finally snaps to and stands, he ignores both Danir's body and the lightsaber, coming to her instead. She flinches when he reaches down and grabs her by the arm, hauling her roughly to her feet. In a brief glance she dares at his eyes, she can see the gold is already receding, reluctantly, an outer circle of blue pushing back against the tide. He drags her by the arm to her quarters and shoves her inside. "Clean yourself up," he hisses, closing and locking the door behind her.

She shuffles to the refresher on shaking legs and climbs into the shower without taking off the teal dress, turning the water on as hot as it will go. There must be an external temperature control, she decides, because while it is certainly hot enough to pink her skin, it doesn't get hot enough to scald. She opens her mouth, letting the hot water fill her mouth and overflow down her chin before she tilts her head back, gargles and spits, immediately grabbing for the toothbrush. Her hands shake as she runs her fingers through her hair. Slowly, she peels the wet fabric from her skin, letting it pool on the floor of her shower. She stands under the water until it begins to run cold.

Turning off the shower, she steps out and reaches out for a towel. With the Force. Tears prick her eyes once more because the Force doesn't respond to her. She knew it wouldn't, but she had to try. Somewhere along the way, after the attack on the convoy, someone had done something to her. But she'd known that. For nearly a month she'd felt its absence. She'd woken up in the temple of the sisters this way. _So it wasn't him that had done it, was it? He was just there at the right time to take advantage of it?_ She grabs the towel and wraps it around her body, thinking how unlikely a coincidence that really is.

Could the healers at the Temple figure out what was done to her? Can she even escape and find her way back there without her connection to the Force? Would they accept her back after she's been a Sith's whore; the plaything of a fallen Jedi? Is it worth trying to go back knowing she may never be fully accepted by her fellow Jedi because of the past weeks of her life? These are the questions that plague Ykané's thoughts as she stares at her reflection in the mirror.

Eventually, she finds she's falling asleep on her feet as she stands in the refresher. She snaps herself out of it long enough to push a comb through her hair and head out to her bedroom. She lets the towel drop to the floor and climbs into the bed, too exhausted mentally to search her room for a datapad or some way to connect to the Holonet or even for something to wear to sleep.

_"Obi-Wan! No!" The long-haired Jedi Master screams in shock as the red-bladed lightsaber wielded by a Zabrak dressed in all black pierces straight through the side of the Padawan. It's a devastating wound, but may not prove fatal if they can get him to a healer or a medical droid in time._

_The Master's yell and the reopening of the last shield gate are enough of a distraction for the Padawan to reach into the Force, grabbing at both the light and the dark, heedless of which will respond, for the strength to stand. He slashes out wildly with his blue blade and hits his mark, cutting the Zabrak in half before collapsing back to the ground in agony._

Ykané wakes with a start. The scar on his side. She knows now why she found him familiar. She'd been a Padawan for a few years already when Obi-Wan Kenobi became the talk of the Temple for being the first Jedi in a thousand years to defeat a Sith. He'd nearly lost his life in the process. And he'd woken to find his Master had taken on a new Padawan. Once he had fully recovered, he'd just disappeared.

She finds there are tears in her eyes once more, though she's not sure who they are for, the boy he was, the man he became, or for herself. Despite her best efforts to remain awake, to digest this new bit of information, her eyes close and she drifts in and out of consciousness until finally succumbing to her body's desire for sleep.

It's several hours later when she wakes again. This time, she gets up to find something to wear, even if it is just some leggings and a tunic to wander about the confines of her room in. She finds the pair of dark grey leggings quickly and with a little more searching, she discovers a casual tunic made of a stretchy black fabric. It has long sleeves that extend down to her hands with holes for her thumbs, a high collar that wraps about three-quarters of the way around her neck, and no cutouts to accentuate any false cleavage. She tries the door. Locked.

Returning to the exploration of her room produces an old datapad but no connection port to the Holonet, making the datapad useless. She considers meditating, but questions the benefits of the exercise if she cannot connect to the Force. She doesn't know how long she spends locked in her room aboard the ship though she feels the ship leave and reenter hyperspace several times. The sink in the refresher provides her with water but she begins to wonder if he really will starve her - she'd found no ration packs during her periodic searches of the room. It's been at least a day since she last ate. She's fairly certain at least that much time has passed, possibly longer. She does finally take to meditating, if only to break up the monotony and give herself something to do other than sleep. Every so often she hears his bootfalls in the corridor outside her room. They never stop at her door.

Lord Aurvan spends the majority of the three-day transit between Mandalore and Oskia in the cockpit. After he’d cleared the galley of the evidence of his unbridled rage and jealousy. The pleading tone in her voice had set off something buried deep within him - a memory of a time long ago when his own future was uncertain - and all he could think about was punishing her for it. He'd remembered the fear in her eyes when they'd alighted on Danir in Sundari. But he hadn’t expected his own jealousy to latch so quickly onto the rage she'd inadvertently ignited as he watched Danir, his obedient servant, thrust his cock into the beautiful mouth of _his_ Ykané. He hadn't even realized he'd done it until he saw her eyes go wide, her face bathed in the red glow of one of his lightsabers. He'd no choice but to usher her to her room and lock her in. At least until he could exercise some margin of control over himself again. 

What little sleep he'd managed to get was plagued by dreams of the past. The scar on his side ached as he'd been forced to relive the near-fatal injury through his subconsciousness. He'd return to his quarters for a few hours, never once glancing at the door to her room as he passed, but thinking about her naked body pressed up against his as he took his hard cock in his hands, her grey-green eyes filled with lust, the memory of her loud cries and multilingual cursing pushing him on until he came, the warmth of his seed spilling down his hand and between his fingers. He'd clean himself up and lie down on his bed in another futile attempt to fall asleep.

Giving up, he'd dress and head back to the cockpit. At least there, with the steady mottling of hyperspace, he could meditate. By the time he pulls the ship from its final jump and Oskia, with its green forests, snow-tipped mountains, and blue oceans, fills the viewport, Lord Aurvan has regained his sense of calm. Without having to look in a mirror, he knows the gold has receded, though it lingers, always, at the edge of his blue eyes. As it has since that first time he pulled strength from the dark side of the Force.


	5. Chapter 5

There's a knock at her door. "Are you dressed," she hears his muffled voice ask. She'd felt the ship leave hyperspace, the subsequent entry into atmosphere, and the repulsor engines fire as the ship came down for a smooth landing. They must be on Oskia, unless he'd changed his mind and altered their course after leaving Mandalore.

"Yes," she begins, her voice cracking with disuse and unsure of how she should address him now that she knows the truth. Calling him by the name she'd heard the Duchess of Mandalore use, which she assumes is his Sith name - whether given to or chosen by him, she's not sure - might incite his ire. And referring to him as Obi-Wan would almost certainly result in her being beaten or killed. She settles on doing as she was instructed prior to landing in Sundari, deciding it will likely be better for her to not upset him for the time being. "Yes, my lord."

He unlocks and opens her door, taking in her appearance quickly and giving her a perfunctory nod. She'd found another of the comfortable, stretchy tunics that preserved her modesty and had been rotating them with leggings in various shades of grey or white, as are the pair she wears now. "Come," he instructs and she follows him through the ship to the ramp. He's no longer concealing his two black and silver-handled lightsabers. They're strapped crosswise on his back like batons, the grips extending far enough above the hard line of his shoulders to be quickly put into action. She can see they're both utilitarian in design, and longer, more staff-like than the typical lightsaber designs she was used to seeing at the Jedi Temple.

The ramp lowers with a wave of his hand and cool, night air rushes in to greet them. He does not offer her his arm this time, just strides elegantly down the ramp, expecting that she'll follow. She does, taking a few quick steps to catch him up. Her own bootfalls match his as she walks alongside him.

"Welcome to Oskia," he says gently.

She looks around as they walk from the landing pad to the manor house, for it seems much too small to be considered a palace, a short distance away. The walkway they are on is railed on either side and covered overhead, but otherwise open on the sides, allowing in the sounds of night birds and insects in what she assumes is forest around them. They must be some ways off the ground, though it's too dark to tell for sure. The air feels and smells like rain is imminent.

The manor is a surprise in and of itself. It lacks much of the ostentatiousness that was so prevalent in the palace in Sundari or the few other rich places she'd had occasion to see on missions away from the Temple. The tall ceilings and wide halls nearly give her the impression of being back in the Temple on Coruscant. Only...whereas they were open and light, here, darkness reigns. And yet there's warmth in that darkness.

"I've had dinner sent up to my rooms, due to the lateness of the hour," he says as he leads her to a set of rooms where a small table has been prepared. Her mouth waters at the smell of roasted meat and freshly baked bread. The sitting room sits open on one side to the outdoors, allowing the smells and sounds from outside to make their way in. She sees a flash of lightning over treetops followed by a still distant rumble of thunder as raindrops begin to fall.

She seats herself in front of one of the simple but elegant place settings while he retreats to an adjoining room. When he returns, his lightsabers and outer tunic are gone. He pours wine for them both and she forces herself to eat slowly though she's desperate for food after the time spent locked away on the ship. They don't speak at all during dinner. It's only as she greedily digs back in for a third helping of the Oskian tree fowl that he realizes his mistake. He'd been so intent on working through his own dark emotions on the journey here that he'd forgotten to provide her with rations.

"I'm sorry," he says, causing her to look up from her plate. She swallows down her mouthful of bread and watches his expression warily, shocked and unsure of the sincerity in his apology. "I neglected your basic needs. I had not intended to starve you on the three days here."

"Three days," she asks before taking another mouthful of the roasted bird, unable to contain her surprise at the length of the trip. She swallows. She hadn't truly realized it had been that long. Her eyebrows draw together and she takes a drink of wine. "Are you going to kill me?"

"No," he says matter-of-factly.

"Are you going to let me go?"

"I don't know." It's the most honest answer he can provide. "Not yet, at any rate," he amends.

He watches, sipping his wine, as she finishes eating.

"Does this…," she waves her hand around as she searches for an appropriate word. "Charade...still stand now that I know you are a Sith? Or at the very least, fallen?"

He raises a cinnamon brow in her direction. "Let us not forget, my dear, that I did  _ legally _ purchase you." He leans back comfortably in his chair. "The sisters operate their school, for lack of a better term, outside of Republic space. And even if they didn't, the fact that the slave trade is  _ technically  _ illegal within the Republic does not mean it isn't a thriving business. Particularly so beyond the reaches of the Senate. To be perfectly frank, Ykané, the Republic does not exist out here. You are, by all rights, mine."

Something about his forthrightness sends heat to her cheeks, which she finds ridiculous. She doesn't  _ want _ to be his property. His pleasure slave.

"But to answer your question, no," he adds after a long moment. "In my home, you may call me Ben."

"And if I'm forced to travel with you, Ben?"

"I've decided we will remain on Oskia for a time." He stands, downing the rest of the wine in his glass.

"Where will I be staying while I am here," she asks, chin up, her glass still half full in her hand.

"Tonight, you will stay with me," he answers. He waits to see if she will argue. Despite her suppressor implant, he knows they are on slightly more equal footing now, at least as far as some things are concerned. "Purely selfish reasons, I assure you. Sundari was the best sleep I've had in quite some time."

His bedroom is much the same as the sitting room, open on one side to the forest beyond. The storm continues outside and he closes the full-length curtains to keep out the light of the eventual dawn while allowing the sounds and scents of the forest to make their way in. He provides her with one of his more casual tunics to wear to bed and has the decency to sleep in loose-fitting pants made from a soft, luxurious fabric. She tries her best to not look at the scar on his side as he climbs into the bed next to her. He invites her in close, as he did that first night on Mandalore, and she snuggles into him. She tells herself it's her duty, that if she said no, she might end up bruised and bloodied or dead, but she secretly wishes it didn't feel so good to be here next to him like this.

In the morning, she wakes to find she is alone. The sound of the thunderstorm is gone and there's a cacophony of birds outside the drawn curtains. She rubs her eyes and yawns. Looking more closely, she can see the curtain on the far end is pulled back slightly, permitting a soft beam of sunlight to enter the room, but not so much that it's overbearing. She climbs out of the bed and pads over to the open curtain. Ben is seated cross-legged on the balcony in the warm sunlight, eyes closed in meditation. Knowing now who he was before, as she looks at him, she can't believe she didn't recognize him straight away. A flush creeps up her neck as she remembers the crush she and many of her fellow teenage Padawans had on Padawan Kenobi. Back before everything that happened on Naboo.

"You are welcome to sit with me," he says, startling her out of her childish memories.

"I don't find much solace in meditation since my connection to the Force is severed," she answers, but steps closer to him anyway.

"You don't have to connect to the Force to connect to the world around you, Ykané." He holds a hand out to her. She takes it and he guides her to a seated position next to him. She smirks at what the two of them must look like sitting next to one another, her in just his shirt, him in just his pants. One whole outfit between them.

"The forest is beautiful," she says quietly.

"Yes. And it is dark and dangerous. The Force is strong here, but it is not a part of the Force that you are used to."

She takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. His words make her shiver and she is glad she cannot feel its pull if it is the darkness he says. Instead, she closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of the forest, she breathes in the scent of the trees, the flowers, the soil, she feels the sunlight warm her face and her bare legs. And in this new way of meditating, she finds a peace within herself that she's not had for weeks, or months. Years, perhaps. Had she allowed the Force to become a crutch? Ignoring the beauty of the physical world as other sentient beings who had not her connection to the Force experienced it? Thinking her way was better because she could feel the deeper Force?

"Come, we need to eat," he says, drawing her from her restful state. Her eyes flutter open and she looks up at him, copper hair and lightly freckled skin bathed in sunlight. She takes his hand and stands, allowing him to lead her back inside.

They take breakfast at the same small table in the sitting room where they'd had their previous night's dinner.

"What do I do all day here while you're doing whatever it is you do," she asks, genuinely curious about what there is to do on Oskia. How far, if at all, she is allowed to wander. What his normal routine is.

"I thought we might train," he says with a wicked smirk, gold from the ring encircling his pupils bleeding outward.

"I'm not your apprentice," Ykané practically snorts. She swears she can hear his voice - _ not yet  _ \- but his lips don't move. "And my connection to the Force is blocked anyhow, so what use is training?"

"When you woke this morning, you thought you couldn't meditate because you had nothing to connect to, but you found that was false. Do you think that you cannot keep training your body, your muscles, and your mind to fight because you cannot draw on the Force?"

She takes a long moment to consider his argument. At once, the realization hits her, nearly knocking all the air from her lungs. She'd given up. When she'd woken up in the care of the sisters and couldn't feel the one thing she'd had all her life that had made her feel special, she'd given up. She'd become meek and compliant. Weak. Thoughts, images, from the past several days flood her mind - trying to fight back against the man who gagged her and forced himself on her, grabbing her Master's hand to stop him fondling her breasts after she was sure he'd just come from fucking the Duchess of Mandalore, his backhanded slap and his tortured and angry voice.  _ We do not beg _ . He's been testing her. Little by little, without her knowing, he's been testing her.

She feels a tear run down her cheek, then another. She looks at him and nods. "Okay." She will not continue to wallow in her weakness. The Force is her ally, but it is not  _ all _ she is.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW/18+ again for this chapter as there are scenes of an explicit nature after the previous chapter's lack of sex.
> 
> This very much falls into the dubious consent category as Ben/Lord Aurvan presents Ykané with a choice that isn't really a choice...

She feels like a youngling doing basic calisthenics again as she trips and stumbles her way through exercises she used to be able to do half asleep. Not that she would have. Exhausted from many days of his grueling training regimen coupled with the hours of running and dodging and strength training he’s already put her through today, she balks when Ben tosses her a wooden staff before grabbing another from the corner of the room for himself.

"You're joking, right," she asks, voice colored with disbelief as she leans on the staff, taking a moment to catch her breath.

"I'm not," he answers, stalking towards her with long strides. He circles her for a moment and she can't shake the feeling of being preyed upon by an apex predator. "But you needn't worry, my dear, I'll take it slow." The last part of his statement is whispered lowly in her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. As if sensing her conflicting emotions and the budding arousal the closeness of his strong body stirs inside her, he circles around behind her and leans in to whisper in her other ear. "Spread your legs."

Stepping back quickly, he uses the end of his staff to prod at the inside of her feet, getting her to open her stance to a suitable width. He alternates between standing next to and slightly in front of her so she can follow and imitate his stance ― while she unabashedly watches his lean muscles shift under the fitted black tunic ― and circling and correcting her posture or her grip on the staff.

He is meticulous in his instruction while still managing to throw in the occasional sexual innuendo that causes her face to redden from more than the exertion of long day’s training. By the time a comm comes through for him and he allows her to rest, the sun is nearing the horizon and she can hear the bird activity picking up as the heat of the day wanes.

Ykané is ready to collapse from exhaustion as he guides her to her rooms. "I'm afraid you'll have to dine alone this evening, my dear," he says, the sweetness dripping from his words hiding a simmering rage. "Unexpected business has called me to the capital. It's not far and I shouldn't be long, but you look exhausted and hungry and I won't have you wait for me."

She nods, worriedly wondering who is going to lose their life tonight. As he closes the door behind her, she hears the lock click and she sighs, angry with herself for assuming her days of being treated as a prisoner were over. She has a balcony in both her sitting room and bedroom, as he does, but there's something different about hers. As she moves closer, she can hear the static and see the slight wavering of the shielding that will keep her from truly enjoying the setting outside. Or finding a possible means of escape from this admittedly beautiful prison. Her sigh is deeper this time and she heads to the bathroom to shower.

By the time she exits the bathroom, feeling better for the steady rhythm of hot water that beat down on her tired muscles, her dinner has been laid out in her sitting room. Without bothering to change out of her robe, she sits and begins picking at the delicious food, washing it down with sips of wine.

Her mind drifts to Kenobi. To the young man she'd heard of and seen several times around the Temple but had never met. What was it that drove him to open himself to the dark side? Could it really be as simple as a desperate clinging to life. Ykané tries to imagine how she would feel if she were returned to the Temple tomorrow or in a ten-day only to discover her Master, who had thought her dead, destroyed with the rest of the convoy, had taken a new apprentice.

But Obi-Wan hadn't died, had he. He'd been gravely injured, but they'd started treatment early enough that the prognosis for his recovery had been good. There was talk around the Temple - of course he would be knighted when he'd recovered. He'd defeated a Sith. But he hadn't been fully recovered and, therefore, hadn't yet attained the rank of Jedi Knight when his Master replaced him with the young boy from the desert planet.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was knighted, of course. She’d heard he’d tossed his braid into the fire. And when he’d been given his first solo mission, he simply hadn’t come back. Jedi are taught to be compassionate, and Ykané can't help but feel for the young man who'd been through so much only to have been pushed aside, for she has no doubt he'd felt that way.

"You mustn't let your thoughts wander too far down that path, darling."

She startles at his warm voice, at his presence in her room. She hadn't heard him unlock the door, let alone enter. Yet here he is, leaning roguishly against the inside of her door, arms crossed over his chest, the golden hue dominant in his irises.

"Better to think on...other things," he adds with a wicked tilt to his mouth. An image of her, back pressed to the wall, legs wrapped around his waist, her fingers trying to find purchase in the fine fabric of the black and red overtunic that only accentuates his devilishly handsome form as he thrusts into her, flares quickly into her mind and then disappears.

She looks away, hoping he did not see her blush, hoping he does not sense that his taunting image lit a fire in her belly that is quickly spreading south. Beyond holding her tightly to himself during the nights, he's not so much as touched her outside of her training since they've been here.

He kneels in front of her, grabs her chin, and turns her head to face him fully. The gold and the blue war within his eyes, but she knows the gold will win in the end. He takes a long, slow breath in and out, composing his thoughts before speaking.

Her grey-green eyes stare back at him, not afraid so much as thoughtful. He can make no promises that he will not ever hurt her, he's too much at the mercy of his emotions, of his temper, of his deeply-buried hurt and rage to do that. But he is determined to let her have some semblance of a choice, even if it is an unfair one at best.

"I am not a patient man, Ykané," he says quietly. Honestly. "I will have you, one way or another. You can come with me to my bed tonight, willingly, and I will continue to offer you that choice. I will continue to train you to defend yourself without having to rely on the Force. Or you can remain here, locked in your rooms, and I will come to you when I please to use you as I see fit. You'll be well taken care of, but you will be no more than a pleasure slave that can be bought and sold in the farthest reaches of the galaxy should I tire of you."

She swallows past the lump in her throat. "How many men did you kill tonight?"

"Just the one."

"Why?"

"Would it truly make you feel better if I said the laws of this world required it?"

"No."

His gaze drifts between her eyes as the lines on his forehead deepen, studying her for a long moment. "When I walk out that door, your choice is made," he says finally, releasing her chin and he stands, straightening and smoothing his overtunic. As he turns away from her, she reaches out and catches his arm. The gold flashes anew in his eyes though she can't see it.

"I'll come with you, Ben." Her hands are shaking. She's just made a deal with a Sith. Given herself to a Sith.

Lord Aurvan leads her back through a short maze of hallways to his private rooms. Once inside, he pushes her against the door as it closes and smashes his lips against hers. He lightens the pressure only long enough to untie the cord at his waist holding the wide strip of gray fabric in place over his tightly-fitted outer tunic before unfastening the tunic itself. He presses his weight into her again, beginning to work the outer tunic off his shoulders, but she grabs the inner edges and stops him.

"Leave it," she manages to say around his relentless mouth, thinking of the image he put in her mind before she'd agreed to their new arrangement.

He moans in appreciation, his tongue resuming its exploration of her mouth. Lifting her off the ground, he wraps her legs around his waist and traces suckling kisses across her jaw to her neck while he grinds his ever growing erection against her sex. He inches her a bit higher so he can reach the fastenings on his pants. Once he's free, he wraps his hand around his cock and lowers her down onto him. He holds himself steady and he breaks through the first bit of her tightness then returns his hand to holding her legs up around his back, pushing his hips forward.

The gold in his eyes flashes brilliantly as she cries out in pleasure, taking him inside of her for the first time as her choice and not his...mostly. She rolls her hips in sync with his as he nips at her collarbone and sucks at her neck. There's a thunk as each thrust from him pushes her back against the door, accompanied by another melodious cry from her throat. He doesn't want that sound to stop, but he can't halt his next impulse.

Tendrils of dark energy weave their way from his mind to wind around her throat. He tightens them ever so gently and can hear the strangled cry that cannot quite make it past the pressure he exerts. Her breathing shallows to something more akin to gasping and he releases the tendrils. He allows her to catch her breath and repeats this twice more, each time applying a little more pressure for a little longer until he feels her spasm around his cock, her sticky wetness coating him as he continues to slide in and out of her. His hands reach for her buttocks to hold her at the perfect angle as he drives himself in again and again, her aftershocks tightening and releasing around his length, until his own orgasm rocks through him.

The typically stoic and controlled fallen Jedi allows a cry to escape his throat, quiet enough for only her to hear. They sleep wrapped up in each other's arms.

Days pass with little variation. Most mornings, Ykané joins Ben in his meditation on his bedroom balcony. He ensures she eats a morning meal that will get her through the day. He works her to the point of exhaustion in their daily training. She's handling the wooden staff with more precision and she's getting better at recovering from what she refers to as his dirty tricks, though she knows that if she had use of her Force abilities, she'd be able to anticipate them and avoid them altogether. But then, she wouldn't be here training with him at all if that were the case.

On the days he is called away on matters of business, he returns Ykané to her rooms and locks her inside. A reminder that she is still a prisoner here. More often than not, he won’t come to her again until sometime the next day. It isn't that the situations that call him away take long to deal with so much as he would rather give himself time to cool before returning to her. After the first few incidents, he's found that he's less willing to inflict pain on her if he allows his rage to simmer and to eventually subside in private. 

Many weeks into this routine, she finally scores a hit in their training. She's done well blocking his repeated attacks when she feels the initial tug behind her heel as he uses the Force to pull her not only off balance, but off her feet entirely. Instead of panicking as she falls back, as she has many times before, she adjusts her grip on the staff and swings out, catching him in the side of the leg, nearly buckling his knee. She somehow manages to hold on to the staff as she hits the ground, turns her backwards momentum into a somersault and comes up on her feet in a crouch.

She sees one corner of his mouth lift in a dangerous smirk as gold floods the blue in his eyes. She knows the sex will be particularly rough tonight; that's if he decides not to just take her now. As if he's reading her thoughts ― and for all she knows, he is ― he stalks quickly towards her and she scrambles to stand up. She brings her staff back up to a defensive position in case he strikes. Instead, with a simple wave of his hand, the staff flies from her hands and clatters on the ground across the room.

"You won't be needing that, my dear." His voice is dangerous, but in a way she's come to recognize as his difficult-to-satisfy arousal.

She bites her lower lip as heat blossoms in her belly. She reaches for him as his final step brings him in close. Only he grabs her hand and twists her around so she's facing away from him. Her back pressed to his warm chest, he uses both hands to tear the fabric of her top, releasing her breasts to the warm, humid air that permeates the training room in mid-day. The Force prods at the backs of her knees until they buckle, her knees hitting the padded floor with a muffled thud.

He's quick to follow her down, kneeling behind her as his calloused hands run roughshod over her exposed torso and his teeth bite at her neck, her earlobes, her shoulders. He shoves her leggings off her waist and down her thighs, his fingers greedily finding their way inside of her, playing and teasing as his erection grows stronger against her back. He grinds against her, revelling in how her body reacts to his not-so-gentle touches, her erratic breaths, the strangled little moans she tries to hold back but can't, the way she drops her head back against his shoulder and he can see her bite her lip and close her eyes. Because she likes this. She _enjoys_ this.

He pushes her forwards so she's on her hands and knees, her buttocks round and perfect against his crotch. Running his hands up and down along her back, he considers for a moment what he wants to do to her. He could undo his pants and fuck her, slow and deliberate, pushing her to orgasm with his full length buried inside of her, her back arched and head thrown back. But a second idea comes to him and, instead, lifts her knees one by one as he removes her leggings completely.

Ben lays on his back and scoots up so his mouth is aligned perfectly under her wet and waiting sex. He lowers her hips down and begins to take his fill. Slowly, at first, he pushes and swirls his tongue inside her. He sucks at her and sees her shuddering breath in the movement of her stomach and ribs, the way her chin drops. When she looks down at him, there's near desperation in her grey-green eyes. Her body jolts as he nips lightly before running the tip of his tongue over her clit and dipping back inside of her. He can feel her juices, more than he can catch with his mouth, running down his chin, catching in his beard as he holds her thighs so she cannot escape his tongue no matter how much she squirms.

"Oh gods, Ben," she manages to breathe out as her toes curl and her thighs clench. He brings her to climax, her hips bucking against his face, and it takes a little help from the Force to keep her from suffocating him as he will not relinquish her wet, hot pussy until her orgasm has waned. The sound of her voice as she calls out his name in ecstasy, he knows, will haunt him if he's ever forced to give her up. He pushes that thought aside as he loosens his hold on her thighs and she lifts herself shakily from his mouth. She rolls onto her side, lifting one knee so as not to hit him in the head and lays there, panting. He moves to lay behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and nuzzling his nose in her hair.

After a time, she forces herself to stand on still weak legs. Ben rolls onto his back and watches her, satisfied smirk that could almost be considered a smile playing on his lips. His hair is the most disheveled she's ever seen it, the knot usually high at the back of his head is loosened, no longer centered, and sprouting lengths of cinnamon hair. That's to say nothing of the mess that is his beard and mustache. She holds a hand out to him, which he stands and takes. Heedless of her nudity and the mess he made of her sex, the remnants of her orgasm dripping down the inside of her thighs, she leads him by the hand to his rooms. He follows obediently, amused and curious, and happily taking in the shape of her body and the soft glow of her smooth skin as she walks along in front of him.

In his rooms, she pulls him towards the bathroom. With the shower turned on so the water can heat, she begins to slowly, reverently, undress him. She unties the black leather cord that he substitutes for a belt when he's in his home, then unwinds the charcoal colored fabric that wraps around his trim waist. Next, she finds the ties that hold his simple black tunic closed at the side. She peeks up at his eyes through her lashes as she tugs at each one. He holds his arms away from his sides just enough that she can push his tunic off his shoulders and down the length of his arms until it drops to the floor. He watches as she bends to gather the articles of clothing she's removed so far. "Leave them," he says, voice unexpectedly hoarse.

She doesn't reply as she kneels in front of him, his breathing deepening as she moves next to his pants. It's both methodical and sensual, the way she's gone about undressing him. He hungers for her body, but he will force himself to be patient until her intentions are fully revealed. She stands back up and tilts her head, her eyes alight on his hair. "May I," she asks quietly. He nods and, carefully, so her breasts barely graze the smattering of hair on his chest, she reaches her arms around his head to remove the tie that holds his hair in the knot behind his head. She's never seen his hair down before so she takes a moment to look at the ginger locks that hang to just past his shoulders, to run her fingers through them.

She pulls him into the shower after her and she washes him from head to toe. If asked why she's doing this, she's not sure she could give an adequate answer. To her, it just felt like the thing to do.

Under the stream of hot water, he returns the favor, sponging her body as if he were cleaning a temple. He leans down to kiss her and she kisses back briefly before breaking away. Her hands trail down his chest to his stomach as she kneels in front of him, the water still beating down on them both as she takes him between her lips. He braces his hands on the walls of the shower as he feels her throat open to admit his length. And gods, it feels good. Every action she's taken up to this point - guiding him naked to his rooms, undressing and washing him so reverently, and now swallowing him down as if she were worshipping his cock - he wonders briefly if this was part of the sisters' instruction. At this moment, he would gladly worship her mouth and her pussy and every other part of her for as long as he can have her, if the Force, light or dark could promise such a thing.

Before he can come, he gently stops her. His erection throbs, so close to release, as he bids her to stand. He turns off the water and, both of them still dripping wet, guides her to the bed. Laying on his back, he wordlessly invites her to straddle his hips. Gripping him lightly in her hand, she lowers herself down onto his erection, a shallow moan exits her mouth as she does so.

"Slowly," he commands, knowing he's pushing his ability to stay his own climax to give her another.

She nods, her lips parting as she lifts off him slightly before rolling her hips and taking him deep inside her again. He brings his thumb to her clit and begins to rub light circles as she continues her slow and steady motion around his cock. She leans back slightly, bracing her hands on his thighs. He knows he can't hold out much longer. Thrusting his hips up and pressing hard with his thumb as her hips roll forward, she gasps in surprise and pleasure. Twice more and the cliff's edge of his orgasm is in sight. One more thrust and it's inevitable. He pushes himself up to sitting, wraps his arms around her and kisses her fiercely as he comes.

She feels his release deep inside her and she ditches the slow, purposeful rhythm, rolling her hips with a hunger and a need she's rarely shown before. He typically pulls an orgasm from her first, following quickly after, but this time, she has to chase hers if she wants it. And she does. He doesn't stop her, just holds her close, tongues tangling together as she rides his still twitching cock, the friction of his body against hers. She finds her release, her fingers tangled in his long hair, her breath hot against his neck, her muscles clenching and unclenching. She wonders if this is how he feels when he rides her climax to his own. Perhaps the feeling is even stronger for him because he has access to the Force.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd meant to post this yesterday but had to postpone due to a massive migraine making it impossible for me to do a final, pre-upload edit.
> 
> You, my gentle readers, will finally get a (brief) introduction to another character! And I apologize for the plentiful descriptions of Ykané's outfits. I love finding pictures on pinterest and trying to describe them. And as a for-fun seamstress, I just adore costumes.

The hot and humid season shifts towards cooler weather and Ykané is finally allowed to leave Lord Aurvan's compound, but only on his arm. He takes her into the capital with him on a scheduled trip to meet with visiting dignitaries from nearby systems. It's a trip reminiscent of her early excursion to Mandalore, only she's much more comfortable in his presence now. She's still unused to the sycophantic preening and jockeying for the little scraps of power and prestige these people are obviously here for.

And then there’s the clothes. After spending months in the manor, she's gotten used to wearing the leggings and tunics that she wears to train day in and day out. Having to prance about in the ridiculous, heavy-weight, cleavage-creating dresses isn't something she's enjoying. The worst of it though is that she finds herself skittish or reverting back to the meek personality she's fought so hard to banish when she's surrounded by all of these strangers. At the manor, she so rarely sees anyone but Ben, though she knows he has servants. The presence of others unsettles her and she doesn't know why.

Ben senses her unease and makes a point to remain by her side throughout the event. He leans in and whispers in her ear, sometimes with a soft brush of his fingers along her arm or her neck, whenever he feels there is something she should know about a particular individual or to clarify a point of conversation. She doesn't do much but answer the occasional question directed her way or smile politely - and falsely - to those who offer her compliments, no matter how venomously they're delivered. And she observes. He may have an easier time of knowing someone's true intentions because he can probe them through the Force, but her skills at reading facial expressions and body language are improving. Though the only person she has to practice on is Ben and he is incredibly gifted at schooling his expressions. 

It's nearly winter, though in the forest the chill is mild, the next time Ykané travels with him, this time to the mid-rim world of Pzandias. He lightly traces swirls across her stomach with his fingertips as they lay tangled in the covers of his bed as he explains that this trip will require something different from her. The people he's meeting with are not necessarily his enemies — not yet anyway ― and his goal is to keep them from becoming such. And also to keep them from attempting to exert influence in the Outer Rim sectors that are currently loosely allied under him. It will be a long and tedious game of politics and intimidation. Her presence alongside him as his slave and not his companion is required to project a certain level of power and standing.

The outfit he's provided her with for the first night _technically_ covers all of her vital bits though it does not necessarily hide them from view. Loose pants made from a sheer, gauzy black fabric include what she’s come to see as the obligatory slit up each side. The only thing keeping them from exposing her completely are the ties at her hips, knees, and ankles holding the front to the back. A triangular cut of the same fabric, secured with a silver chain around her back to keep it in place, covers her breasts while leaving very little to the imagination. The top of the triangle is tied onto one of the rings on the ornate silver choker Lord Aurvan placed around her slim neck to reinforce her status as his concubine. His property. In addition to the choker, she also wears silver cuffs at her wrists that could easily be mistaken for richly decorated bracelets were she not clearly his slave. Each of these pieces had been designed to be connected with chains should she get out of line and need to be either restrained or carted off like a pet on a leash.

She was instructed to keep her hairstyle simple - parted down the middle and either pulled into a single braid or gathered into a tail at the nape of her neck. When she meets Lord Aurvan at the ship’s exit, she understands why. He’s holding a tangle of silver chains with small baubles and decorative discs that he arranges atop her head. One of the chains sits along her centered part from the back of her head to the bridge of her nose. Connected to it are slender chains that drape across her forehead and brow, under her eyes, and across her cheekbones. Her skin is already warming the cold metal disks that hang from some of the chains. He tells her that this piece is meant to show off his wealth to the others, more so than she, a simple pleasure slave, could.

Her nerves are significantly heightened as he precedes her down the boarding ramp. A chilled wind hits her, making her shiver and hardening her nipples under the sheer fabric as they exit the ship and she moves up closer to his back. He is tense as well. She can see it in the stiffness of his shoulders and the way he tugs at the hem of his tunic. He doesn't have his lightsabers on him, that much she can tell, and it bothers him. Briefly, she wonders if he has any sort of weaponry concealed somewhere in his regal outfit. He'd be a fool not to.

She remains silent and demure as they are led by a servant and two well-armed guards through the overly decorated hallways of the local governor’s mansion to an ostentatiously gaudy banquet hall. She does not sit with Ben during the dinner, as he had informed her was likely to be the protocol, but stands as inconspicuously as possible along the wall behind his high-backed chair with the other servants and slaves. She'd noticed a few other scantily clad women, most of them Twi'lek, and even a couple bare-chested young men lining the walls when she took her place behind Lord Aurvan. The rest looked like _normal_ servants, though several were obviously mistreated and malnourished. Ykané's heart breaks for them all, but especially for the ones who couldn't be more than teenagers. She hides her sorrow in her downcast eyes and tries to listen to the sometimes raucous conversations going on across the dining table. She only rarely hears Ben's cultured voice which tells her he is primarily listening as well.

She loses the thread of the latest conversation she's been eavesdropping on when Lord Aurvan raises his hand just above the level of his shoulder and snaps his fingers. She hurries forwards as he'd told her to do should he signal for her on the journey here and leans in carefully.

He brushes the backs of his fingers along her cheek as he whispers instructions in her ear.

"Of course, Master," she replies quietly. Instead of retaking her place along the wall, she moves gracefully to pass the message to one of the household servants. It was a simple message, not one that needed to be conveyed, really. He'd just asked her to ensure his room had been adequately prepared as their late arrival had not given him the chance to inspect it himself but her departure from his side had been followed by hearty laughter and scandalous comments so she suspects the conversation he had been involved in concerned her merits as a pleasure slave. Or perhaps a larger scale debate of the advantages and disadvantages of Humans versus Twi'leks, as Ykané was outnumbered by her Twi'lek counterparts in the banquet hall.

Lord Aurvan gathers her from her place along the wall following the last course of the meal. He'd made sure she'd eaten before debarking the ship as he knew she would not have another opportunity until much later in the evening. She follows him at the prescribed distance as a valet leads them to their appointed rooms for the night.

The servant leaves them at the door. Ben doesn’t say much to her other than specific commands which she immediately follows, fairly certain she knows the reason. When he takes a seat in the solitary armchair in the corner of the room near the balcony, knees spread wide, he scrubs a hand down his face. Sighing, he undoes the clasps on his outer tunic and pulls out a datapad.

Ykané comes to kneel between his legs. Looking up at him through her lashes, she waits for some indication, some invitation from him. Ben loops a finger through one of the rings of her silver collar and tugs, lifting her face to his. He leans forward, capturing her mouth and kissing her deeply. He pulls back, then leans in once more to whisper in her ear that the room almost certainly has listening devices and possibly even hidden holocams. She nods and begins the task of unfastening his pants.

Ben leans back in the chair as she runs the tip of her finger along his length. He hardens under her gentle ministrations, dropping his head back and closing his eyes, enjoying the feel of her touch. A groan rumbles from his chest as her tongue replaces her fingertip and when her lips replace her tongue. She takes him into her mouth, her hands massaging his thighs. His fingers tighten on the arms of the chair as he resists the urge to roll his hips and thrust his cock deeper down her beautiful throat. With the silver choker fitted tightly around her neck, he's not sure she will be able to take him fully. It does not stop her from doing her best, using her hand at the base of his cock when she realizes the collar does indeed inhibit her ability to swallow him down.

She sucks, swirls her tongue, even scrapes her teeth lightly along his most sensitive skin as she bobs her head up and down on his erection, the chains and little silver disks on the headpiece jingling against her skin. The muscles in his legs and abdomen tighten. With his head still resting on the back of the armchair, Ben lets out another deep breath. "I'm going to come," he says quietly, roughly, eyes remaining closed.

Knowing he's close to climax, she pulls off of him and licks at the head of his cock with just the tip of her tongue. She takes a deep breath and wraps her mouth around him once more, this time deep throating him until she feels his cock twitch against the back of her throat and his warm seed spills into her. Ykané swallows as best she can but some slips back down his length, past her lips, and catches in the thatch of auburn curls surrounding the base of his cock.

Ben pries his fingers from the armrests and reaches for the rings on her choker collar to still her movement. "That's enough, my pet," he says as he uses the pad of his thumb to wipe his spilled semen from her lips. His voice is shaky, strained, but loud enough to be picked up by any listening devices.

It could be seen as improper for her to share his bed, particularly as she has already serviced him for the night, so after helping him ready himself for bed, she settles herself on a hard, narrow bed in the small, unadorned, adjoining room meant for a servant. She’s become so accustomed sleeping next to Ben that Ykané lies awake for some time, unable to get comfortable. With the door between her room and his open, she hears the sounds of his fitful and restless sleep.

In the morning, she draws her Master's bath. He uses the opportunity of the noise of the running water to tell her of the day the governor has planned out for his guests. It is mostly distraction, he knows, meant to put the gathering of wealthy and influential patrons of the Mid and Outer Rim at ease before getting to the true business that brought them all here. For her part, Ykané will be expected to mingle with the other servants as she completes her chores throughout the afternoon ― fetching fresh linens for the night, ensuring her Master's effects are properly cared for in the household laundry, assisting in the preparation of his meals. He warns her to take caution, however, when around the others of her status as too much interaction may be seen as conspiratorial, incurring punishment for her and the others. Lastly, Ben tells her that sometime in the next few nights the grand purpose of the invitation will be revealed, though he is unsure as to when. She can tell this worries him, but he attempts to brush it off, raising a cinnamon brow as he informs her he has a special outfit picked out for her for that night. 

Three days pass before the night Ben had been expecting arrives. She'd spent her time being as unobtrusive and invisible as possible though that had proved difficult at the fancy banquets laid out each night. One or two of her Master's counterparts had allowed their gazes to linger over her fairly exposed form a bit too long for her or her Master's liking. She'd seen Ben's fists and jaw clench as one of these "gentlemen" engaged him and a few others in conversation about a practice in his own system in which it is customary to loan out their personal slaves to others of the same social standing. "On a temporary basis, of course," the man had said with a smirk, his eyes flickering in her direction. That night, Ben had pinned her back against the wall, wrapped her legs around his waist, and fucked her hard until that entire wing of the mansion had likely heard her cry out in ecstasy.

On the appointed night, signaled by the arrival of an as yet unnamed guest of honor, Ben presents her with another ornate headpiece, richly adorned with beads carved from precious stones. Her skirt, with slits centered on each thigh that reach all the way to her hips, is a deep crimson. As with all the others she'd worn while they were here, the fabric is light and relatively transparent, though the dark color helps to provide a minimal amount of modesty.

The top he has provided her with, if it can even be considered as such, is a tightly-packed series of silver chains that loop down from another ornate silver collar like a thick necklace. There is nothing to wrap around her back to hold the fall of chains securely to her chest. They move when she does, cold metal brushing against her nipples, sometimes shifting to inadvertently expose one or the other. Were she to bend over for any reason, the whole piece would fall forward, leaving her breasts fully exposed. This choker collar, like the others, has noticeable rings attached, as do the new thick silver bracelets he's given her, proclaiming their dual usage as decorative and as restraints. For tonight, her hair is tied high at the back of her head, a long tail of auburn falling mid way down her exposed back.

Ben – Lord Aurvan – is dressed in impeccably fitted layers of black tunics over black pants. The subtle decoration of the outermost tunic is done in a thread that matches the color of her skirt, as does the simple, thin rope that ties around his trim waist. With his cinnamon hair pulled back into its typical knot, he cuts an impressive figure. She imagines how much more dangerous he could truly look with the simple addition of his lightsabers strapped across his back.

Ykané is allowed to remain on her master's arm during after-dinner drinks though she keeps her head bowed, her eyes down, and her smile sweet. He does not introduce her as he strikes up conversation or as others approach him to do the same, though she feels lascivious eyes scan her body on multiple occasions. Ben’s body goes taut next to her as a tall, older man approaches.

"Lord Aurvan, is it," the man asks in a deep voice, similarly accented to Ben's own, but with a skepticism that would put Ben on his guard if he wasn't already.

Ben inclines his head in respect to the older man. "Count Dooku," Ben says smoothly. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance, though I've heard much about you."

"I'm sure."

The tension between them is palpable and Ykané has to work hard to keep from glancing up at the tall man.

"Perhaps you and I may speak with one another _alone,_ " the Count says pointedly. She can feel his hostile and dismissive gaze boring into her without having to look up.

"Of course," Ben answers easily. He removes her hand from his arm and, without taking his eyes off the Count, says, "Would you get us some drinks, my pet?"

She begins to nod but he pulls her in close to whisper in her ear. "Take your time, but do not wander far," he warns. He nips at her ear lobe and, with a hand under the lengths of chain, brushes a thumb along the underside of one of her breasts, sliding it up to trace a slow circle over her nipple before he releases her.

"Yes, Master," she answers with a curtsey directed towards both men.

The conversation between Lord Aurvan and Count Dooku does not last long. It is one of the _games_ Ben had spoken about to Ykané on the ship on their way here, though quite a bit more dangerous than even he had expected. It is clear to Lord Aurvan that Count Dooku, at the very least, suspects his former identity. Ben had been smothering his presence in the Force from the moment he stepped off his ship in preparation for just such an encounter though he hoped it would prove unnecessary. He knows the Count is trying to get a feel for him, he simply has to keep his true self hidden long enough to convince Dooku that he is not, nor has he ever been, Obi-Wan Kenobi. By the time the Count takes his leave, Ben knows his best has not been quite enough. The suspicion lingers and if the rumors he's heard of Count Dooku are true, his life may very well be in danger. His and Ykané’s.

Ben searches the room for Ykané only to find her, a drink in each hand, cornered by one of the other guests, a drunk human man twice her size, though most of that is in his gut. He can see she wants badly to fight back, but knows she won't because that is not the role he's asked her to play. Anger awakens inside of him, feeding off the fear from his encounter with Dooku, and he would give anything to feel the cold metal and warm leather of his lightsabers in his hands. Instead, he discreetly sidles up behind the drunk man and lifts the blaster from the man's own holster.

The man, oblivious to Ben's presence, continues to run his hand lasciviously along Ykané's bare skin - and there is a lot of it to choose from. He's inching his fingers under the chains barely covering her breasts when Ben pokes the barrel into the man's rotund side. "Come now, my friend, what is the punishment on this world for defiling another man's property," he says firmly but quietly. The man freezes and Ykané begins to look up at him gratefully. But she sees his eyes and knows the man groping her will not live to see the morning.

The man begins to stammer an apology and, somewhat surprisingly, a request to work out a deal, one of those temporary swaps that had been spoken of the day before. His Twi'lek for Lord Aurvan’s human girl for a night. The man's rambling is cut short with the muffled sound of a blaster shot.

Ykané drops the two drinks as the man drops to the floor. She's torn between wanting to bury herself in Ben's chest and the fear she feels at his cool, remorseless anger. He holds his hand out to her and she places her own trembling hand in his, stepping around the corpulent body on the floor in front of her. She knows there will be no questions, no arrests, the guards will come in and simply remove the body and everyone will go about their business. It is high-class, this underworld Lord Aurvan has made himself a vital part of, but it is an underworld nonetheless.


	8. Chapter 8

Instead of escorting her to their room, he grabs hold of one of the rings on her collar and practically drags her back to his ship. It's painful, the edges of the metal digging into the tender skin of her neck as he pulls her along, and she's nearly in tears by the time they reach the landing pad. He releases his harsh grip on her but she still waits until they're safely aboard and in his quarters before she asks what is going on.

"The rooms are bugged, my love. I'd be forced to punish you harshly for _inciting_ that imbecilic governor’s attention if I took you back there," he begins, coming to sit next to her on his bed. "It's not safe. For either of us. But I can spare _you_ from having to go back in and fend for yourself."

She starts to question the meaning of his statement, but he quiets her with a gentle kiss.

"I have to go back in. The true meeting to which I was invited has yet to take place. You'll be all right here on the ship, safer than you would be in those rooms." He studies her face for a long moment. "Wait here."

He leaves her sitting on his bed for several minutes. When he returns, he shows her his comm. "This is just a precaution, but should something happen to me, my comm is rigged to the ship's controls. The ship will take off and I've programmed the navicomputer to take you to Coruscant." He doesn't need to say what they're both thinking - she can return to the Jedi.

She begins to protest, surely everything will go smoothly, surely no one is stupid enough to try to kill or imprison him.

He kisses her again, tongue playing across her lips until she opens her mouth to his. One hand holds the nape of her neck while the other works it's way down her body, pausing briefly to fondle her breast and rub teasingly at her nipple before dragging his nails down the exposed flesh under her breasts to the line of her skirt below her navel. He finds the indecently high slight at her thigh and moves the silky fabric aside to rub his fingers along her already wet folds. One finger, then two, push into her. His mouth never leaves hers as he works his fingers inside of her and his thumb on the outside, finding all the right places to apply pressure so she's quick to orgasm. He bites her lower lip as she releases quiet cries of pleasure into his mouth.

He eases his fingers out of her and kisses her for only a moment longer. Sitting back, he sucks her taste from his fingers, as he did that first day, and gives her lips one more kiss. "It's only a precaution, my love." He cleans his hands quickly in the refresher while she curls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, on the bed. Looking back at her once more before he leaves his quarters, he adds, "The other guests will assume I’ve chained you up as punishment. Stay on the ship, and do not lower the ramp for anyone."

She nods quickly and he leaves. She hears the ramp descend, the purposeful reverberation of his boots on the durasteel, the sound of the ramp closing once again and a few tell-tale beeps that assures her she's locked safely inside. For a while, she can't convince herself to move beyond taking off the weighted headpiece. She's afraid for him. Replaying the evening's events in her mind, she tries to pick out information that is important. The tall man that shooed her away to talk to Ben sticks out most in her mind. Count Dooku. His name is familiar, though she cannot recall why.

Realizing that while she _is_ locked away in the ship, she _is not_ confined to her quarters with no HoloNet connection, she goes to retrieve the older model datapad from her quarters, returning to sit on Ben's bed. It takes her a moment to find a data port to plug into, but once she does, she has access to the galaxy at large that she hasn't had in months. It briefly crosses her mind that she could send a message to the Jedi Temple, but the thought of the consequences were Ben to find out, and he would certainly find out, are enough to keep her from doing it. At least that is what she tells herself.

She uses one of the encryption models she remembers from her days as a Padawan to hide her information search from anyone giving the information request a cursory glance. Her eyes go wide as she understands not only why Dooku's name was familiar, but why Ben had tensed so much at his approach. Count Dooku had been the Master of Obi-Wan's Master. They were connected, though they'd likely never met before as the Count had left before his former Padawan had taken Obi-Wan as an apprentice.

Shaking her head, not ready to consider the ramifications of their fateful meeting tonight, she pulls up information on the planet Berchest. She’d committed it’s name to memory after he'd mentioned it briefly during their visit to Mandalore. Republic news sites listed a devastating earthquake in the northern hemisphere that drew relief aid and volunteers from across the Mid Rim to the small planet in the weeks following the disaster. The timing of which lined up with her waking up in the sisters' temple and her subsequent purchase by Lord Aurvan. The natural disaster had provided him a plausible excuse for her showing up on his arm in polite society out of nowhere.

As that clearly wasn't the site of the temple she'd been taken to, she looks into the sex trade, legal and illegal depending on your location in the galaxy. She can find nothing on the Temple of Raat-hi or anything that sounds remotely like the place she spent weeks being taught how to provide sexual stimulation and pleasure for her future Master or Masters, concluding that it must be exclusive enough to need only word-of-mouth advertising among the galaxy's wealthy. Which, of course, causes her to wonder, again, how she had ended up there.

Next, she searches for anything she can find on the convoy to which she was assigned. There is brief mention of an ambush by a little-known band of pirates and a report that the entire convoy was destroyed, but beyond that, nothing. It was supposed to have been a simple mission, one that a senior Padawan should have had no problems with: she would travel on one of the ships in the convoy, tasked with bringing valuable supplies, including food and medicines, to impoverished communities in the Outer Rim. The value of the cargo, she knew, made them somewhat more susceptible to the possibility of attack, but she'd planned the route to avoid the hyperspace lanes that had become increasingly preyed upon by pirates. Only she had failed. The supplies had been lost, probably stolen, she'd been kidnapped, and everyone else had been blown to spacedust. 

Finding nothing more on her failed mission, she tosses the datapad aside and curls up under the covers. She tries to stay awake to wait for either Ben to return or to feel the repulsor engines engage, but her own tension carried throughout the evening makes her sleepy. She's dozing lightly when the sound of the ramp lowering pulls her fully awake. As soon as she sees him, she's ready to throw her arms around his neck, but she allows him the dignity of making his way into the ship and closing the ramp behind him before she does it.

"Thank the Force you're all right," she says into the stiff fabric of his high collar.

He wraps his arms around her waist and presses a kiss to the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. His hands move down to grab her backside and he kisses her roughly on the mouth. A groan escapes his throat as he pulls back. "I have to get the ship in the air."

She gives him a questioning look.

"I'll explain later," he says, softer. "For now, we need to leave."

She follows him silently to the cockpit and straps herself in next to him. In moments, they're on an orbital escape vector and breaking atmosphere. He silently runs the calculations into the navicomputer and makes the jump to lightspeed. Leaning back in his seat, he sighs.

"There's a war coming, Ykané," he says tiredly.

"War?" Concern bleeds through her voice.

"I've suspected it for some time, but it appears as though it's much closer than I thought."

"Will you tell me?"

He turns his head to look at her, considering. He nods. "But before I do that," he says with a smile, "I want you to ride my cock while the glow of hyperspace surrounds your tantalizingly beautiful body like a halo."

She blushes fiercely and nearly laughs. "I had no idea you were so poetic," she says as she unfastens her harness and stands. She squeals as he grabs her by the waist and pulls her down to straddle his lap. He kisses her shoulders, her collarbone, and her neck above the collar as she unfastens his pants. He's already hard so she moves the front panel of her silky skirt out of the way and eases herself down onto his erection. Longing to run her hands across his strong chest as she arches her back and rolls her hips, her hands undo the ties of his tunics and she pulls them open one by one. The blue-white mottling outside the viewport reflects in his eyes as he reaches behind her to undo the lock of the silver choker. The chains shift over her breasts and he tosses the whole thing onto the copilot's chair before reaching up farther to remove the tie that holds her hair in a long auburn fall that starts high on her head and leaves the ends to swish back and forth across her back. He runs his fingers appreciatively through her long hair before moving on to the rest of her body. When his strong hands get to her hips, they grip her tightly and he begins to tilt his hips in sync with her, pushing his cock further into her as she rolls forwards to draw him in deeper.

She grips his forearms as those dark tendrils of Force energy wrap gently around her throat. He's done this a few times with her, but it still comes as a shock when she first feels it. She takes shallow breaths through her nose until she can barely move air past the pressure at which point he releases her. The speed of their rolling and thrusting increases, his fingertips dig harder into her flesh, and she once again feels the invisible fingers squeezing at her throat. The surge of arousal he senses from her causes him to put a little more pressure at her throat. The grip on his arms tightens and he releases her throat once again. Each time, each repetition, he goes a little longer, a little more intensely than the last until they're no longer leisurely enjoying the feel of one another. He's pulling and pushing on her hips and thrusting into her and she's letting him control her every movement, head thrown back, long hair draped around her shoulders like a blanket, breasts moving up and down with each push and pull. He wants her to come, he wants to see her come undone, to give herself over to him. He allows the tendrils to wrap around her throat once more, squeezing as he speaks softly in her mind. _Give yourself to me_.

Her eyes open and her head comes forward to look him in the eyes. Dangerous molten gold looks back at her.

He squeezes a little tighter. _Give yourself to me, my love_.

She's beginning to see spots at the edge of her vision as he cuts off more of her air. He could kill her now if he chooses. But she can't stop the orgasm he's so skillfully worked from her. It wracks through her body like a tidal wave which only strengthens when he releases her throat and the oxygen pours back into her bloodstream. His hands at her hips keep her moving in time with his thrusts as her muscles spasm and she curses loudly in the quiet cockpit. He moves her hips and buries his cock deep inside her as he spills his seed into her, her muscles still contracting uncontrollably around his cock. He thrusts into her again, causing her to cry out. He does this again and again until another wave of climax overtakes her, though not as strong as the first.

Spent beyond anything she could have imagined, she leans forwards to rest her forehead against his, still feeling the occasional twitch of his cock inside her.

"Did you comm the Jedi Temple while I was off the ship," he asks quietly, calmly, stroking her hair as she leans against him.

"No," she answers without hesitation. "But I did consider it."

"Good girl. I would have thought less of you if the thought hadn't crossed your mind."

"Will you tell me now? About the meeting? About the war?"

"Yes," he answers. "Come, we should go clean up."

She grumbles a little, comfortable with her head where it is.

He chuckles lightly. "This may seem comfortable now, but I can assure you, we'll both regret it tomorrow." He lifts her chin and places a languid kiss on her lips.

Reluctantly she eases herself off of him, adjusting her skirt as she walks slowly down the corridors to his quarters. Coming up behind her in the corridor after fastening his pants, he pushes her hair off to one side and leans down to kiss her neck, beard tickling her overly sensitized, post-orgasm skin. He wraps his other hand around her trim waist. She stops and leans back into his chest with a sigh.

"I'd like to see you wear this to training one day," he says in her ear as he runs both hands across her torso.

"If you want me to train practically naked, it's only fair that you do so as well."

He growls and bites at her ear. "Get in the shower, you little tease," he says with a playful smack to her backside.

As she curls up next to him in his bed, he tells her what he can, or more so what he is willing to, about what had transpired during the informal meeting. Much of it had been an airing of grievances, senators or influential persons from systems who were becoming fed up with the inability of the Republic to assist them or to effectively govern. Ben, or Lord Aurvan as he was known to the others in the room, had found much of what was being said to be in line with his own opinions. He would not, however, throw his lot, and with it the systems that fell under his sphere of influence, in with yet another ineffectual body politic. Mandalore and its surrounding systems as well as the others he...assists...maintain an autonomy he will not relinquish simply to side with these other systems against the Republic. Nor will he encourage them to do the opposite.

There was no talk of armies or weapons manufacture, but he has no doubt there are plans already set in motion. It may be a year, two, or even more, but war is coming. He can feel the dark side churning with anticipation of it. It's somewhat exhilarating, if he's honest. He wouldn't call it bloodlust, but the darkness in him knows there is satisfaction in destroying one's enemies. He also knows that eventually, he _will_ have to choose a side, though the systems he speaks for may remain neutral.

Looking at the young woman next to him, he wonders how long he has before he'll have to give her up. She's proven herself to be a quick study, picking up the fighting style he's been working her through with the wooden staff rather well while her connection to the Force is still impaired. He doesn't want to leave her cut off like this for too long as that will only make it more difficult for her to adjust when the Force comes rolling back in on her senses. She hadn't contacted the Jedi, though he'd given her the means and the time to do so and that gives him hope that she'll stay.


	9. Chapter 9

They don't remain on Oskia long after returning from Pzandias. Ben loads up his ship with several months worth of supplies, including items from his training rooms so he can continue working Ykané through various forms of combat as they travel. He's decided to remove her Force inhibitor, but not at his manor on Oskia, surrounded by the dark energy of the forest that feeds and replenishes his own power. He will take her to more _neutral_ ground so she's not overwhelmed by either the dark or the light.

In a rented manor on one of the moons of Felucia, far out in the Outer Rim, he puts her into a deep sleep and gets to work. Removing the Force inhibitor is a delicate process though it takes less time than putting it there had - two days to insert the suppressor implant and disguise the healed incision with the small tattoo behind her ear. She'd never asked about it, but he'd seen her contemplating it on several occasions and knew she'd been trying to decipher any possible meaning behind the design or placement. He could remove the tattoo now as well, but he decides to leave it as the visible evidence of his claim over her. He keeps her deeply sedated for nearly a full day afterwards to keep her from experiencing Force-induced dreams.

He's sitting in a chair by her bedside, datapad in hand, looking over reports from shipping lanes and analyzing financials for one of his puppet rulers when she jolts awake. He drops the datapad onto the chair and moves to sit in front of her on the bed.

"Breathe, Ykané," he tells her calmly as her gasping breaths come quickly and unevenly, her head pounding with the influx of unexpected sensation. "Look at me, focus on my eyes."

She does as he instructs, blinking rapidly as she tries to focus on the clear blue of his eyes, only a hint of gold at the inside edge of his irises.

He takes her hand and places her palm flat against his chest. "Breathe with me," he says, his gaze never leaving hers. He breathes in slowly, steadily and then exhales the same.

She drops her eyes to where her hand rests on his chest and tries to match her shuddering breaths to his steady ones. It takes a long time and the pain in her head leaves her cheeks wet with tears.

When she's gained control of her breathing, he pulls her in close, laying a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "I'm so sorry, my love. I know this isn't easy."

For a moment, her anger flares red hot. _He is the one that did this to me. And now he thinks to apologize_. Her pain is his fault. But along with the anger comes a new rush of pain to her head and she squeezes her eyes shut against it as she buries her face in his neck, her fingers bunching the fabric of his soft tunic.

"It will take several days, possibly longer, for the headaches to subside. We'll focus mostly on meditation until they're gone." He strokes her hair and rubs gentle circles on her back as though trying to soothe a wild animal.

"I can feel you," she says in a quiet, quivering voice. "Your darkness." It isn't a cold darkness as she'd always expected him, or any dark sider for that matter, to be. Like the corridors of his manor, there's a warmth to him. She finds it strangely comforting and she's fairly certain that's not a good thing.

He holds her for some time, neither one speaking. Eventually, he pulls back. Pushing her hair off her face and behind her ear, he studies her face for a moment. He stands slowly from the bed and tells her he's going to get her something to eat.

While he's gone, she wants to explore, to reach out, to test her abilities, but keeping her breathing steady still requires most of her focus. So she starts there. She crosses her legs under the covers of the bed and lets her hands come to rest on her knees. Turning her focus inwards, she counts slowly as she inhales and exhales, trying to match the count between each and then steadily adding on so each breath is deeper than the last. She can feel his dark presence re-enter the room. Before, it would have frightened her. Before she was sent to guard the convoy, that is. There is darkness in him, but no ill intent. At least not at the moment.

She opens her eyes as he sets a tray of food on a low table in the corner of the room. He takes a few of the cushions from the sofa and chair and arranges them on the floor around the table before returning to her side.

"Do you think you can stand," he asks, holding his hand out to her.

She takes it and nods. A wave of dizziness shoots through her as she puts her weight on her feet. Ben...Lord Aurvan – she's not sure which name feels more true for him – wraps a strong arm around her waist and guides her to the table and cushions. He helps her to a seated position on the floor and then sits across from her, one knee bent up on which he rests his forearm. She eats slowly, still having to focus on her breathing to block out everything else and keep the pounding in her head to a minimum.

He watches her with an odd mixture of curiosity, wariness, and fondness. "I'd swear you look as though you are a little frightened of me, my lord," Ykané says, attempting to break some of her own discomfort at the intensity of his gaze as she finishes the last bit of food on her plate.

"Just wondering if you're going to try to kill me now that your connection to the Force has been restored. And I would rather you call me Ben."

"I seriously doubt I could manage such an undertaking in my current state." She's still unsure if "Ben" is a proper fit for the man sitting across from her so she indulges him only so far as to not address him as "my lord."

"Would you not consider it your duty as a Jedi to try. I am fallen, after all," he argues logically, without a hint of emotion in his words.

Her brow scrunches, partly in thought, partly due to a fresh wave of pain behind her eyes that disappears almost as quickly as it came on. "I don't know," she says finally. It's as honest an answer as she can give him. She believes there are some in the Jedi Order who would not hesitate. But there are others, and she thinks she may fall into their ranks, who believe that redemption is possible. It's one thing when talking about a true Sith, one who has only known the dark side of the Force. Ben can be ruthless – she has seen that side of him – but she knows he once walked in the light. She doesn't know if he will ever do so again, but is she obligated to remove that opportunity altogether by destroying him?

As she studies him, he licks the excess juices from the meat they'd had with their meal from his fingers. Heat forms low in her belly as he wraps his lips around his index finger and sucks it clean with the barest hint of innuendo. He repeats the motion with his middle finger, gold around his pupils bleeding slowly outwards into the blue.

"That's not playing fair," she says, finding it slightly more difficult to keep her breathing steady.

The corner of his mouth lifts. "When have you ever known me to play fair, my love?"

Her traitorous body reacts to his words and she feels the growing wetness between her legs. She's heard him call her that a few times now but she hasn't thought much of it. Is it possible that he could love her or is it just another manipulation?

Sensing her thoughts, he moves to sit next to her, his body angled towards her. He traces his knuckles lightly down her cheek and jawline. "You doubt me," he says softly, leaning in close enough that she feels his breath on her lips as he speaks.

"I don't want to," she answers. Because she doesn't. She wants to believe that despite the darkness that dwells within him, there's light enough to feel something for her beyond possessiveness. That there's something left in him that she can love in return.

"I know," he whispers before pressing his lips to hers. Her lips part and his tongue tangles with hers. He pulls her into his lap and allows his presence to expand outwards to encompass the fragile connections she's reforging in the Force, protecting her so she can relax into his embrace.

 _Let go,_ his voice whispers in her mind. _I can protect you._

She resists the invasion into her mind, forcing him out as she pushes physically at his shoulders, breaking the kiss. When she looks at him, his eyes flash with gold, but he doesn't grab for her. He lets her stand up, fighting the dizziness on her own, and back away. Standing, he takes a deep breath and smoothes the front of his elegantly fitted black tunic, his eyes still flooded with gold. The darkness in him, she can sense, has shifted to something cooler, but he makes no move towards her.

"Doubt me all you wish, Ykané. But know that I will not force you." He starts towards the doorway, aware of the irony in his statement.

"Ben…," she begins, but she hasn’t a clue what she wants to say to him.

His presence immediately softens as he stops and turns back towards her. "When you feel you are strong enough to meditate, I'll be in the room down the hall."

When he leaves, she listens for the telltale sound of her door locking behind him. She doesn't hear it.

The sun has begun to set when she knocks on his door, the datapad he'd left in the chair beside her bed tucked under her arm.

"Come," he says, voice strained, as she hears the locking mechanism on _his_ door click. She taps the control and when the door slides away, she's greeted by the sight of him shirtless and sweating, working through cadences she's never seen with a long-handled lightsaber in each hand, crimson blades glowing eerily in the light of the sunset peeking through his windows. There are some similarities, she sees, to a traditional dual-wielding technique, but this looks much deadlier. He finishes what she can only assume is the last of the form and disengages the lightsabers.

"Are you ready," he asks, his breathing heavy from what must have been hours of working out his anger through cadences. His eyes are still golden, but her sense of him is no longer cold.

"Yes," she answers, though she's admittedly a little more afraid of him than she was before. She tells herself it has nothing to do with how beautiful he looks, taut muscles of his arms and chest accentuated by the light sheen of sweat, stray pieces of cinnamon hair that have come loose from the knot at the back of his head framing his thin, bearded face.

He leads her to the center of the large room. All the furniture, with the exception of his bed, had been moved to either line the walls or out of the room entirely to give him room for practice. He sits cross-legged on the floor and she mimics him, facing him, knees not quite touching his. He briefly gazes into her grey-green eyes before closing his.

She takes a long moment to let her eyes run across the planes of his body once his eyes are closed, knowing she should close hers as well. The dips between the muscles of his shoulders and his biceps, the rise and fall of his chest with every steady breath, the cut of his abdominal muscles as he sits with perfect posture.

"I can put on a shirt if you're having trouble focusing," he says with a smirk, eyes still closed. 

Ykané blushes and closes her eyes.

Ben walks her through a basic meditation she'd done a thousand times back at the Jedi Temple. It isn't so easy to maintain the control as she opens herself slowly back up to everything around her in the Force after being cut off for so long. Most of what she feels of her surroundings reflects the light, though she can recognize the darkness that Ben embodies in front of her. He's contained, though, allowing her to stretch out and explore her current limitations without interference.

Growing exhaustion and an ache behind her eyes strong enough that Ben can sense it, prompts him to step in and guide her back to her center. She hears him say her name, though at first it sounds like she's in a dream. She's not sure how many times he's called to her. When she's finally able to force her eyes open, Ben has a hand on her arm and another cupping her face, blood on the pad of his thumb. She leans in and tries to focus her eyes on his, but it's too much.

"Damnit," he says quietly, quickly moving forwards to catch her as her eyes roll back and she passes out. "Apparently you need stronger supervision, my love" he says to her knowing she doesn't hear him. He gets one arm behind her back and the other under her knees and stands. Laying her on his bed, he stacks a couple of the soft pillows beneath her heels, then retrieves two cool, wet towels. One to place at the back of her neck and the other to gently clean the trickle of blood from her nose caused by her over-exertion.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand we're back to the sex and manipulation. Also a serious conversation. So mind the tags, please.
> 
> After this, I only have one more chapter finished so my posting schedule will slow down significantly as I balance work, writing, and other projects.

By the time she wakes, he's showered and changed and is laying on the bed next to her, reading from his datapad. She opens her eyes slowly, the headache lingering behind her eyes. She hears the crackling of a wood fire burning in the fireplace on the opposite side of the room, casting a warm glow throughout the room. Turning her head to the weight in the soft bed next to her, she frowns. "You put a shirt on," she pouts, drawing an almost laugh from him.

" _You_ pushed yourself too hard," Ben replies. He sets the datapad aside and rolls over to face her, running his fingers through her hair. "And I let you. A mistake I don't intend to repeat."

She rolls onto her side to face him fully and hesitatingly reaches her hand out to touch him. Her fingers brush along his side, his stomach, and up to his chest. He keeps his hand near her face, occasionally pushing her hair behind her ear or running his knuckles along her jawline or cheekbone. He lets her explore his body slowly and softly with her hand, knowing she can both see and now sense his growing arousal. She moves in closer, tilting her head up until he can feel her soft breath in the neatly trimmed hairs of his beard. He wants her mouth so badly but he's determined that whatever they do here and now will be her choice.

Her hand finds its way under his tunic to his warm skin, light touch teasing across taut muscles. She continues to breath him in, mouth just out of reach, as her hand moves to his erection. He feels the deeper exhale against his neck as she strokes him lightly through the fabric of his pants. Her head tilts back again and he thinks she might actually give in and kiss him this time, but he instead feels her cheekbone barely brush against the hairs on his jawline. His breath stutters in her ear as her fingers trace down his length again and back up.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, he grips her arm tightly. "I warned you once, my love, that I am not a patient man," he says into her ear. He finds her mouth with a fury and a hunger that she opens herself up to immediately. She responds, pressing her hand against his cock, eliciting a growl from deep in his chest. He bites her lip and sucks at it before releasing her mouth to roll her over to her other side. He tears off his tunic and pants before he moves behind her again. Her clothed back and buttocks pressed against him, he unties her tunic and proceeds to tease her in much the same way she'd done to him. Grinding his length against her back occasionally to remind her of her effect on him, he sticks his hand down the front of her pants and massages her clit.

She arches her back, pressing her backside against the lower half of his erection and he pushes a finger into her roughly, biting at the shell of her ear. She grabs at the waist of her pants and starts to push it down over her hips. He greedily continues pushing his finger in and out of her, not bothering to help as she lifts her hips off the bed to get her leggings out of the way. Once she gets them down past her knees, he pulls his finger out and grabs his cock and positions the head at her wet and waiting entrance. He holds onto himself long enough to ensure he has a good angle and then he pushes his length into her. One arm props him up behind her while the other hand grabs at her breasts and her stomach, sometimes dipping down to rub harshly at her clit or grab at her hip as he drives his cock in and out. Her back arches as she takes him deeper. He holds onto her hipbone tightly to keep the glorious angle of her hips to his as he increases the speed of his thrusts. When his climax begins to roll through him, he brings his fingers back to her clit, teasing and thrusting until he feels her tense around him. She half buries her cries in the pillow under her head as he nibbles at her neck, his beard pleasantly scratchy against her soft skin.

He pulls himself out of her but keeps her tucked close against his chest, gently stroking the soft skin of her stomach.

"May I ask you a question," she asks quietly after a time.

"Of course, my love," he says, kissing her ear lightly. "Though I cannot promise I'll be able to give you a complete answer."

Swallowing her uncertainty, she turns her head to look up at him. "Will you tell me how I ended up here?"

He cocks a cinnamon eyebrow in her direction.

"I mean it, Ben," she doesn't beg, she simply asks for the truth. "The whole story. You don't really think I believe this has all been some sort of grand coincidence."

His hand on her stomach stills. She can sense the uncertainty within him. She doesn't know how far back his manipulation of her goes. She wonders briefly if he bears more responsibility for her current situation than she had previously imagined.

"I can only tell you what I know to be true after a certain point. Much of what happened before your arrival at the Temple of Raat-hi is speculation, with the exception of my own actions. You may find it all difficult to accept." His hand resumes the comforting, steady motion on her skin.

She waits for him to continue, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against her back.

"Your Jedi Council knows of my…let's call it a _situation_. They know I let the dark side in that day on Naboo and that after, I chose not to fight it. Disappearing was an option for a while, but the dark side of the Force craves power. So I came to the Outer Rim. To Mandalore and the Duchess. I found Oskia and made a home where the darkness of the forest called to me. From there I built up my power and began offering my services to petty local rulers. My initial alliance was with Satine and Mandalore, though she doesn't always approve of my more heavy-handed tactics. From there, I was able to spread my influence to other nearby systems. I'd managed to keep the lust for power over systems in check, partially by turning it elsewhere. Though I had not directly opposed or interfered with either the Jedi Order or the Republic, I knew the Council wouldn't continue to allow me free reign in the Outer Rim forever.

"The first time they decided to do more than observe, they sent an idealistic young Knight after me. She was told who she was looking for and what she may or may not have to do to discover my true identity. She'd disguised herself as a former Padawan who'd been thrown out of the Order, making her way to the Outer Rim through underhanded deals and sexual favors. I took her in knowing full well she was sent by the Council. I don't know if it was her plan all along or if she was simply too naive, but when I openly admitted my true nature, she insisted on attempting to kill me. She failed and I sent her body back to the Council for proper death rites.

"There was another after that; a step back to pure information gathering. I knew I was being tracked and led him to a slave auction where I confronted him. He wasn't a coward. He fought back but he'd not been sent to kill me so, though we fought, I had no reason to kill him. He returned to your Temple alive, though not entirely whole. I've spotted others, sent to watch but likely told to keep their distance. None of them were difficult to get rid of.

"I believe you were the Council's new tactic. Perhaps if you were not made aware of your true mission, you might live long enough to escape and to report my dealings and my actions to the Council. _I_ organized and funded the pirate attacks on the shipping lanes leading up to your mission. Though I may very well be giving the Council too much credit in thinking they knew that. Either way, they willingly played into my scheme and sent you, a beautiful, young, intelligent senior Padawan with a known history of sneaking out to enjoy some Coruscant _nightlife_ to guard a shipment bound for the Outer Rim Territories.

"The pirate band I hired to attack your convoy followed their instructions. They turned you over to me along with half of the shipment, kept the other half as payment, and left no trace of the convoy. I was determined that this time the game would be played by my rules instead of the Council's. You were unconscious from the time the pirates took you off your ship until I handed you to the care of the sisters. I put in the Force suppressor implant. Leissha sent me word of your progress and I came to retrieve you when I felt you were ready to accept your new _position_ in society."

He feels a shuddering breath against his chest. Placing his hand on her chin, he turns her head towards his. She's crying. He kisses her temple and wipes her tears with the backs of his fingers.

Ykané turns her gaze from him and swallows hard before speaking. "Nearly a year before that mission, my friend Taylissa, she...she went missing for two nights. We'd gone out in the lower levels. She’d wanted to come along with me and Les.” She pushes past the guilt that threatens to overwhelm her. “And when she turned back up at the Temple, she didn't remember much." Ykané takes a deep breath, thinking back to that night at some noisy nightclub. She hadn't meant to lose track of her friend, but the young man she was with, Les, another Padawan who had just returned from a mission with his Master, had more of her attention than he perhaps deserved.

"Your presence is familiar. I’ve felt it before," she says, putting the pieces together in her mind. " _You_ were the man flirting with Taylissa that night."

Ben doesn't answer her and his breathing remains steady against the back of her neck so she continues. 

"Medically, she was fine. They could find no evidence of anything having been done to her." She swallows hard. "But if you didn't torture her or if you didn't fuck her, why would you take her? For two whole days?"

"I wanted information, Ykané. And I am perfectly capable of getting _that_ from someone without having to lay a finger on them. That was not the first time I’d seen you.”

An image of her and her Master on a mission in the Outer Rim, dressed as smugglers and ensconced in a booth in a seedy cantina, waiting to meet a contact with information on some missing artifact or cargo or what exactly, she can’t remember, breezes quickly through her mind.

“I did not harm your friend, I only ensured she would not remember her encounter with me until she was questioned by the Council. And even then, she would recall only enough to get them to form a new plan of action against me - a plan I wanted them to make."

" _I_ was your target? By taking my friend, you set it up so I would have to admit to her Master and to the Council that I was out with another.” Her own Master was fully aware of her tendency to sneak out. He’d never openly admonished her for her behavior, just cautioned her against forming attachments and made sure she’d stayed current on her injections to suppress her menstrual cycle. “And if they knew about my indiscretions they might be more willing to send me out as bait."

"Particularly if they figured out I was the one who took your young friend," he adds. "I cannot speak to the motives of your Council in deciding to send you, though I had set it up through the use of your friend and others with you in mind.

"But my dearest Ykané, you were so much more than I'd expected. You're observant. Intelligent. You figured out what I am and who I had been without having been told by the Council and without your connection to the Force. I had to leave the implant in until I could be reasonably sure you wouldn't try to kill me as the other had."

Silence stretches out between them, but she doesn't make a move to get up, to leave, to return to her room.

"Does the Council know I'm still alive," Ykané finally asks, sniffling.

"I don't know. It's possible. I have yet to sense that they've sent another. Though perhaps they are simply keeping their distance and watching."

"Why did you remove the implant now?"

"Because I fear I am going to be hunted. And you, along with me. I will feel better knowing you have your full abilities at your disposal in the event the Sith come after you as well."

"I thought _you_ were Sith," Ykané asks wryly, though she's genuinely curious as to what sort of distinction he makes between himself and other wielders of red-bladed lightsabers - like the one who had nearly killed him on Naboo. 

"In some ways, yes. In others, no. I did not replace the apprentice I killed on Naboo. And he was the apprentice, of that I am certain. I do not know who the Sith Master is, though I have my suspicions. He is very well hidden and extremely powerful. I suppose you could consider me self-taught."

"Is that even possible?"

Ben chuckles softly against her ear. "I told you the forest on Oskia was alive with the dark side. It is not the only place like that. There is a surprising amount of knowledge to be had if one can figure out where to look."

"Is that the only reason," she asks after another long silence.

"Hmm?"

She turns in his arms so she's facing him. "Me being better able to protect myself. Is that the only reason you chose to remove the suppressor implant?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"I thought it was obvious, Ykané." With his thumb, he traces the tracks left on her face by the tears she had shed.

"I want to hear you say it, Ben. I need to hear you say that it's more than just about possession."

"That's the difficulty isn't it. Making the distinction between knowing that I love you and still wanting to possess you. I will always want the latter. Not the least because of the way you call out my name and your body tightens around my cock as I bring you to climax." She watches the fluidity of the blending between azure and gold in his eyes as he speaks. "It's part of the darkness that lives inside of me." His gaze drifts to the right side of her face. "I left the tattoo behind your ear because I am the one that put it there, because it reminds me that you are mine. That at one point, you gave yourself over to my hands, to my mouth, and to the rest of my body."

She lowers her gaze. That at least explains why she couldn't recall ever seeing any reference to the design or the placement in her past studies of how slaves are marked. It was personal.

He lifts her chin so she's looking at him again. "I love you. _And_ I will always consider you mine. Even should you no longer be at my side." He leans in and softly kisses her lips. 

"Does that mean you're going to let me go," she asks, eyes still closed from his gentle kiss.

"If you wish to return to the Jedi, I won't stop you," he answers, leaning in to kiss her again. He pulls back just enough to break the contact, but she feels the brush of his whiskers against her lips. "But there is still so much more I could teach you, my love." His voice is warm, sensuous, full of promise.

She tilts her chin up slightly so their lips meet once more, wondering if there's something wrong with her that she is actually considering staying with this man. He's manipulated her from the start, taken away all semblance of who she was, abused her physically and psychologically on more than one occasion. He clearly uses sex as a weapon.

And yet, she's not sure if it's her own anger or his she's feeling when she thinks about why the Council would have chosen to send her, especially without telling her the truth, without telling her she was merely bait. Did they think she would more willingly submit to his insatiable lust because she herself had never been shy about sneaking around in or out of the Temple to satisfy her own carnal desires? She wonders if she's strong enough in the light to stay, to learn from him, to sleep with him and resist the pull of the dark side that rests within him. If she could pass a test of such magnitude…

The brush of his lips on the inside of her thigh draws her from her thoughts. She'd been focused so much on her choice that she hadn't noticed he'd moved down her body.

"Gods, you really don't play fair," she says breathily as the tip of his tongue glides across her slick folds.

"I do not," he says as he maneuvers his shoulders under her legs and wraps his hands over the tops of her thighs to hold her still. He presses his tongue inside her, letting his warm breath and soft facial hair tease her still sensitive sex. He sucks at her clit, nibbles at the skin surrounding her sex, and licks with varying degrees of pressure until she's nearly ready to come, and then he draws back, leaving her wanting while he teases her lightly but not enough to push her over the edge. He rests his chin on her pubic bone and gazes up at her as his finger draws light circles just at her entrance.

She tucks her chin to look down at him, the golden glow in his eyes tells her he's truly enjoying prolonging her torture. He smirks at her before he goes back to working her over with his mouth. Once more, he brings her almost to climax and pulls back, lightly blowing cool air on and around her clit as she squirms under the strong grip of his arms.

He circles the tip of his tongue lightly through her folds before drawing her eyes to his again. "I'll let you come if you agree to stay with me for the time being."

She groans in frustration. _Sex as a weapon, the manipulative bastard_. He dives back in, fiercer, rougher, and she thinks he might not actually pull back in time to prevent her orgasm, but he does. Again and again. He knows exactly how much pressure to apply with his tongue or his lips or his teeth and where to apply it to keep her just shy of tumbling over the edge. She feels like this goes on for hours, but she knows that's just her impatience. How is she supposed to make her decision when his exquisite tongue will not grant her any sort of reprieve. _Sex as a weapon_.

"Will you teach me to dual-wield," she asks, gritting her teeth as his tongue laps at her insides, pushing her closer to a release she knows he won't yet let her have.

"In the style of the Temple, or in my own," he asks in response, replacing his tongue with his finger and slowing the circular motion.

"Yours." Her breath hitches as he pushes his finger deep inside of her.

"Yes," he answers simply before teasing her folds with the tip of his tongue once more as he adds another finger to join the one working inside her.

"Anything else, my love?"

"I don't...I don’t know. I can't think any...anymore," she practically whimpers under his continued teasing.

"Tell me you'll stay." His fingers circle the inside edge of her sex, promising her release if only she agrees. She feels cool air on her clit as he brings his mouth close and blows ever so slightly.

"I'll stay, I'll stay," she says quickly. "Please, Ben, just make me come."

He takes her quickly, greedily, tongue pressing her clit as he removes his fingers so he can hold her hips against his mouth. His tongue, his clever, perfect tongue twirls inside her sex as he sucks and swallows her juices. She cries out and fists her hands in the bed sheets as he draws out her orgasm. He's relentless in the pursuit of her pleasure, reveling in the arch of her back and the way her thighs clench on either side of his head. She's particularly beautiful when she's spent.

He allows her orgasm to wane and moves back up to lay next to her. "We'll try meditation again in the morning, my love," he says quietly. 

"Is there anything more to eat," she asks groggily, her eyelids already heavy with sleep.

"I'll have some food brought up, but you have to be awake if you want to eat."

"Will you help me to the bath, then? I'm not sure my legs will work properly after all of that." She giggles as she sits up slowly, open tunic falling off her shoulders. How it had managed to stay on this long, she has no idea.

He stands at the end of the bed, grabs her ankles, and drags her to the edge as she squeals. She's barely had time to sit back up, her legs dangling off the end when he bends down and lifts her up, throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her to the bathroom.

"Hmm, I like this view," she says, shamelessly admiring his firm buttocks as her head dangles just above the inward curve of his lower back.

"I'd argue that mine is better," he replies with a playful smack to her backside, which is conveniently positioned next to his head.

Setting her feet on the floor, he sits on the edge of the bathtub as he turns on the water. She climbs into his lap as the tub fills, nuzzling her nose sleepily against his neck. His fingers graze her chin as he tilts her head up and kisses her.

By the time the bathtub is full, light steam rising from the surface of the water, there’s a knock on the door. Ben deposits her gently in the hot water and leaves her alone in the bathroom, pulling the door mostly closed behind him. He quickly wraps one of his long over-tunics around his body before answering the door. Ykané tries to listen to the brief conversation though their voices are muffled, making it difficult to understand the words. She knows it was about more than just dinner.

A short while later, there's another knock on the door to his room. This time she can smell the aroma of sautéed meat and vegetables and freshly baked bread. She rinses her hair one last time and steps out of the bath, finding a towel to dry her hair and another to wrap around her body until she can find a robe. Before exiting the bathroom, she finds a comb to run through her wet hair and a tie to hold the braid she works it into. Unable to find a spare robe in Ben's bathroom, she removes the towel from around her body and hangs it on a hook on the wall. The end of her braid drips occasionally as she opens the bathroom door and makes her way, naked, to where he has the food set up on a tray at the end of the bed.

He looks up from the datapad he'd been perusing while he paced the floor near the window, shirtless once again with black pants riding low on his hips. She sees the flash of gold in his eyes and, this time, she feels the surge of dark energy in him, the passion, the desire, the want. But he controls it – as much as one can control the dark side. The corner of his mouth draws up into a smirk that gives her the impression that he'd devour her if she'd let him. She looks to the food and bites her lower lip.

"Please," he begins with a deep rumble in his chest, reminiscent of a chuckle, "don't let me stop you. I have a few more communications to review and then I'll join you."

She climbs up on the bed, sitting cross-legged on one side of the tray and picks up a piece of bread. As she chews, her eyes follow Ben but her thoughts drift to the past. She tries to remember if she's ever sat naked on a bed, or anywhere for that matter, and eaten a quick nighttime meal. _Partially naked, yes_ , she recalls. There have been several occasions where she's had on just a shirt or a slip. Most of those have been since she's been in Ben's company, taking breakfast in his rooms on Oskia after spending the night together.

Though there was one time she and another senior Padawan had been out of the Temple well into the night cycle and had laughingly fed one another a post-coital picnic laying mostly naked and mostly hidden at a rooftop garden in the Senate district. They'd been lucky they hadn't gotten caught by a roving patrol of Senate guards. Ykané smiles briefly at the memory as she tears off a small piece of the tender meat.

"How is your headache, my love," Ben asks as he sets the datapad down and moves to join her on the bed. Instead of sitting on the other side of the tray, he sidles up behind her. His warm chest presses against her bare back as he reaches his hands around her to pull apart a piece of the meat for himself.

"It's still there, but more manageable than earlier."

"Good. We'll make another attempt at mediation in the morning. Though you'll have to trust me, Ykané."

She nods, still a bit unsure.

They continue to pick at the food on the tray in silence, both alert and fully aware of the position of their bodies. She waits to see if his hands will stop picking food from the tray and instead find their way across her naked form. Most of the food has been consumed when she leans back into his strong chest with a sigh, watching as with a gesture of his hand, the tray rises off the bed and floats to settle on the floor near the door. He wraps an arm around her middle, his other hand coming up to stroke the side of her face.

"We should get some sleep, my love" he says softly in her ear.

She sighs contentedly and nods.

He presses a kiss to her temple before pulling away to stand. She watches as he walks to one side of the bed and removes his pants before lifting the covers to climb into the bed. "Come to bed, little one," he says.

She stands from the end of the bed and stretches, arms over her head, body elongated, as she yawns. Sensing the slight change in the energy radiating from him, she saunters to the side of the bed and climbs in next to him. Once she's buried under the blankets with him, his arms holding her close, she looks up to see the gold in his eyes. "You're not the only one who doesn't play fair," she whispers before placing her lips on his.

When she breaks off the languid kiss to nestle her head on his chest, he briefly strokes the hair behind her ear before his fingers find the back of her neck, thumb pressing a hair beyond gently on the front, making it difficult for her to swallow. "It may not be tonight, nor even tomorrow, but make no mistake, my love, you will pay for any insolent behavior." He releases the pressure on her throat and turns his head to lay a kiss on her forehead. "And I promise you _I_ will enjoy it," he adds softly, menacingly. Sensually.

"Goodnight, Ben," she whispers, snuggling up more closely to him, one leg thrown over his so he can feel the wetness between her thighs.

A low growl sounds in his chest before he wishes her a goodnight. In her ear, he adds in a barely audible whisper, "You wicked little thing."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind me, just making up some Force woowoo shit... But hey, if our dear Lord Aurvan can't explain it, that means I don't have to figure out how to either!

True to his word, they focus strictly on meditation for the next several days. Ykané tires quickly at first, overwhelmed by the sensations of everything around her, of being able to _feel_ beyond the physical for the first time in many months. After talking her through it and ensuring her that he will not exert any undue influence over her thoughts, she allows him to use his power to surround her fragile outward explorations in the Force.

Nearing the end of a ten-day since he removed the Force suppressor implant, she’s strong enough that Ben begins to test her shielding, poking and prodding at her mind, challenging her to keep him out. One afternoon, shortly after beginning these new exercises, she’s mid way through sliding her tunic off her shoulders before she realizes the suggestion came from him and not her own thoughts. She calls him a bastard and begins to storm towards the door leading out of his rooms, angry with herself for her apparent weak-mindedness and angry with him because he’d given her no warning that he was altering his training methods.

“The dark side has given me much more strength in certain areas than any normal Jedi, and I’ve always had a knack for the mind trick,” Ben says, grabbing her tightly around the arm. She reluctantly turns to face his gold-hued eyes. “Your shielding is weak, but _you_ are not weak-minded. Don’t ever think you are, Ykané.”

She nods silently, holding back tears of frustration.

Ben’s eyes track down her body and a smirk plays across his lips. But he doesn’t act on it. Instead, he releases her arm and wraps her tunic back around her exposed front, securing the ties. “There are far worse suggestions I could have planted in your mind, my love. As I’m sure you are aware.”

“You could have warned me you were going to violate my thoughts in that way.” She tries to keep most of the venom from her voice.

“It isn’t much of a test if you’re expecting it, is it?”

Her eyes search his handsome face for a moment. With a sigh, she concedes his point.

“Tomorrow, we’ll leave here for another location and we can begin working on your saber technique.”

His pronouncement sends a thrill through her. Initially. Her second thought, once the excitement ebbs away, is of her own, lost lightsaber. She longs to feel the weight of it resting in her palm. To see the yellow-green tint of the blade. To feel the cells in her body vibrate and hum in tandem with those in the kyber crystal that she had found and that had found her. She tries to hold on to the joy of actively training, but the loss of her blade, her creation, weighs on her.

“We will also continue to work on your shielding,” he says, a slight frown marring the beauty of his mouth.

The rest of the day is spent in Ben’s room doing just that. He prods at her mind, sometimes attempting to plant thoughts or suggestions, sometimes throwing indecent images her way, causing a flush to crawl up her cheeks. He encourages her to push back, to try to force her way past his shielding. She’s reluctant as it is not the Jedi way to forcibly invade someone’s mind like this. His justification, one she is not sure she truly believes, is that she will be able to get a sense of the structure of his own shielding and use that to help her with her own.

She tries a few times with thoughts, meeting staunch resistance that makes her feel a little envious of his skill. When she gives up on thoughts and suggestions, she forms an image in her mind, a still capture from her memories of the Jedi Temple. She and one of her fellow Padawan flings - her first, really - had stolen away into one of the map rooms in the middle of night, loaded up a random sector of the galaxy and he’d fingered her surrounded by the glow of distant star systems. That was the first time another had brought her to orgasm. Concentrating hard, she pushes this image at him and his body flinches with surprise. Her immediate reaction is one of vulnerability. Had she really just allowed him – _forced him_ – to see one of her most closely guarded, intimate details from her past?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Trying to make me jealous, are you, my love,” Ben asks with a hint of humor.

“No,” she answers sheepishly. “I didn’t expect that would work.”

“Images tend to be easier to slip through one’s shielding,” he informs her. “Though I’ve not discovered why that is. You’re not actively trying to influence someone’s decision making but it _is_ a more creative way of planting a suggestion.”

Ykané thinks back on the numerous times Ben had used that particular technique on her. The brief flashes of imagery he’d put into her head to either make her blush, make her jealous, or to make her comply with his wishes.

“It still doesn’t seem right,” she whispers.

“I have no doubt your Jedi Council would frown upon the ways in which _I’ve_ put this skill to use, but it can serve more noble purposes. Say we were to come under attack, perhaps separated in dangerous circumstances. A flash of an image of a safe place to meet back up is much more easily communicated, particularly over longer distances, than full thoughts.”

Ben hadn’t mentioned the possibility that they were in danger since her first night awake after he’d removed the Force suppressor implant. “Are you really in danger, Ben?”

His face is grim as he looks towards the door. When his gaze returns to her, she can tell his smile is forced. “Not to worry, my love. I’ve yet to sense that we’ve been followed since leaving Pzandias.” He wraps her up in his strong arms. “But that does not negate the need for caution.”

She nods against his shoulder, allowing him to hold her in silence for a time, warm in his arms. In the stillness of the moment, she tries again. This time, she does not pull an image from her past. She imagines their naked forms entwined on the roof of the secluded manor house in which they’re currently lodged, the starlit night sky bathing their bodies with soft light. A quiet groan is the only indication that her attempt was successful.

“You don’t have to be modest with me, love. If you want to fuck me under the stars, you can just tell me.” His lips trace along her jaw, the hairs of his beard rougher now against her skin since he’d trimmed it back a few days earlier.

Melting into his embrace, she lets his mouth wander across her skin.

 _Tell me, Ykané_ , his voice sounds in her thoughts.

“I want to fuck you with the light of a thousand star systems shining down on us, Ben.”

He practically growls as he lifts her off the floor and hoists her legs up around his waist. Her back makes contact with a wall as his gentle kisses along her neck turn to harsh nips. She pushes her fingers into his hair below where it is pulled back into its standard knot and he grinds himself against her, leaning his weight into where he has her pinned against the wall. Roughly, he pulls back, letting her feet drop back to the floor. Still pulling harsh breaths of air to his lungs, he holds a hand out to her. “Come.”

She takes it and he leads her to the one room on the upper level with a wide balcony. “We’ll have to climb or jump from here.”

Truthfully, Ykané isn’t yet confident enough in her restored connection to the Force to attempt even this small of a jump so she settles for searching for suitable handholds and pulling herself up to the rooftop.

Ben remains on the balcony long enough to ensure Ykané makes it safely to the roof before pulling on the Force to assist his jump. He lands gracefully next to her and quickly pulls her into a passionate kiss. As their articles of clothing are hastily removed, he devotes a portion of his attention to arranging them in such a way as to provide some modicum of comfort on the rough surface of the roof.

He stands on the roof, naked flesh pressed against her soft, warm, body, tongue twisting with hers inside of her perfect mouth, knowing that losing her will destroy him. “Tell me what you want, Ykané,” he whispers in her ear.

“I want you on your knees in front of me,” she says breathily while he nibbles and sucks on her earlobe.

Settling himself on his knees as she asked, he doesn’t wait for her to say anything else before laying his hands across her lower back and burying his nose in the soft curls between her legs. She gasps as his breath warms her sex. He takes his time, placing gentle kisses across her stomach, her hips, the inside of her thighs before returning to the warmth of her sex. He lavishes her sensitive folds with the tip of his tongue. Ykané’s fingers work their way into his tied-back hair and she moans deeply as he sucks at her clit.

As she tilts her head back, filled to the brim with ecstacy, she looks up into the clear night sky dotted with stars and planets and moons she does not know the names of. She feels his dark presence in the Force, his arousal, his greed. She wants to take his cock inside her, to bury him deep within her body and soul. So she pushes into his mind a vision of him, sat back on his heels, her legs and arms wrapped around him, her breasts pressed against his chest as he holds her to himself.

Neither of them speak as his mouth leaves her and he sits back, pulling her down onto his lap. Ben grabs hold of his erection and guides it home into her hot cunt, soaked with her arousal and his saliva. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder as she rides his cock in the tepid air of a cloudless spring night.

Lying on the roof, a sky full of stars overhead and his arm wrapped around Ykané’s warm, naked body to hold her close, Ben slowly breathes in the scent of her hair and her skin. “In the morning we’ll head to Mandalore for a short visit with the Duchess. Death Watch has become emboldened in the last month or so. I cannot have them destabilizing the region any further.”

“Will I be under guard when you leave me at the palace to deal with them,” she asks, shifting onto her side to get a better look at his face. Her fingers toy absentmindedly with the hairs on his chest as she waits for his answer.

Only he doesn’t answer her, at least not for several long moments. “I don’t know,” Ben says quietly. He wants to bring her along, to have her by his side when he confronts the upstarts challenging one of his allies. With his thoughts safely behind wall upon wall of shielding, he allows his mind to wander to one of the secure compartments on his ship. To the lightsaber he lifted off Ykané’s unconscious body when he paid the pirates for the thorough job they did on the convoy. 

_Will I be able to take her life if having the blade returned to her hands is all it takes for her to fulfill her duty as a Jedi_. He knows it is unlikely, but the dark side feeds his worst fears, whispering them in the depths of his mind like a seducer. He had already promised himself that he would return her lightsaber when they depart their current hideout and he intends to follow through with that promise.

Gently, he rolls her onto her back, covering her body with his as he kisses her slowly.

 _I love you, Ykané,_ his tender voice speaks within her mind. She sighs at the pleasurable stretch as he enters her once more, his large hands and calloused fingers wrap around the top of her head as he settles his weight on her. He pushes into and pulls out of her in languishing repetition. Wrapping her right leg over and around his left, she bends her left knee up to open herself wider to him, her hands around his back, holding his chest tightly to hers as he makes love to her.

Her breath is soft against his ear. “I love you, Ben.”


End file.
